i '-it 


SPEECH OF MR.I^ND, OF OHIO, 

uroN 

THE RESOLUTION TO CORRECT ABUSES IN THE PUBLIC EXPENDITURES, 

AND TO SEPARATE THE OOVERNIVIENT FROI^ THE PRESS. 


Delivered in the House of Representatives, April, 1838. 


Mr. BOND said he rejoiced that the attention 
of the House and of the country was again invited to the 
subject of retrenchment and reform. He was aware that 
these terms had become somewhat hackneyed, and he almost 
feared that their frequent repetition here had rendered them 
trite and unmeaning. They had been used, as was well 
known, with great effect, to put down one Administration 
and elevate another. That end being attained, they seem¬ 
ed to have performed their office, so far at least as the party 
now in power are concerned. All must admit that we have 
had no practical retrenchment or reform. 

Mr. B. said lie wished gentlemen now in power to admit 
that they had amused, if not deceived, the People of this 
colintry with a mere “ fancy sketch.” If they would not 
make this concession, then he called upon them to specify 
any retrenchment or reform which they had accomplished. 
But, sir, if they fail in this, as I think they must, then I 
demand their reasons for not carrying out their great and 
salutary system of reform, for which they stood solemnly 
pledged before the country. 

I am unwilling to believe that the terras retrenchment 
and reform have lost their just and virtuous sense. The 
People of this country will determine whether the necessi¬ 
ty for such measures had passed away with the simple ele¬ 
vation of certain men to power. 

You, Mr. Speaker, must be well aw'are that something 
more than this was promised. You professed, sir, I mean 
the party with which you act professed, to be moved by 
the purest and most sacred regerd for the welfare of the 
People. We find recorded here, and in the Senate, a so¬ 
lemn pledge to carry into effect a systematic reform, if you 
should be placed in power. This was done, sir, in March, 
1829, and you have held undisturbed possession ever since. 
During that time, now going on ten years, what part of 
your pledge has been redeemed 1 

I desire to conduct this discussion fairly, and with en¬ 
tire accuracy as to facts. I wish so to state them, too, 
that all may form a just opinion in relation to the sincerity 
and good faith of those whose conduct may be brought un¬ 
der review. 

Was it really true, sir, that the expenditures of the Gov¬ 
ernment were unnecessarily large 'I Had the President too 
much power, and was there a necessity for restraining it 1 
Was the patronage of the Government so enormous as to 
require checks to be placed on it ^ Was this patronage 
used for political ends, especially the patronage of the press'! 
Was it true that the freedom of the press and the security 
of our liberty demanded that the printing patronage should 
be withdrawn from the several Departments, and the State 
Department in particular'? 

All these inquiries are suggested by the declarations and 
avowals of the present dominant party when they sought 
for elevation. But lest gentlemen may have forgotten the 
recise charges made against Mr. Adams’s Administration, 
beg leave to read from certain documents of this House 
and of the Senate, in which these griefs and complaints, 
with the promised reforms, are duly recorded. 

The first, in point of time, is a report made to the Senate 
in 1826, by a select committee, (of which Mr. Benton was 
chairman,) “ to which was referred a proposition to inquire 
into the expediency of reducing the patronage of the Exe¬ 
cutive Government of the United States.” In this docu¬ 
ment Mr. Benton reports: 

“ That, after mature deliberation, the coraiiiittec are of opin¬ 
ion that it is expedient to diminish or to regulate by law the 
Executive patronage of the Federal Govermnent, whenever the 


I same can be done consistently with the provisions of the Con¬ 
stitution, and without impairing the proper efficiency of the Gov¬ 
ernment. Acting under this conviction, they have reviewed as 
carefully as time and other engagements would permit them to 
do, the degree and amount of patronage now exercised by the 
President, and have arrived at the conclusion that the same 
may and ought to be diminished by law.” 

For this purpose that committee then reported six bills ; 
one of them proposed to regulate the publication of the 
laws and of public advertisements; another had this inv 
posing title—“ a bill to secure in office the faithful collec¬ 
tors and disbursers of the revenue, and to displace default¬ 
ers.” But, besides its alluring title, that bill also contained 
the following provision: 

“That in all nominations made by the President to the Sen¬ 
ate to fill vacancies occasioned by the exercise of the President’s 
power to remove from office, the fact of the removal shall be 
stated to the Senate at the same time the nomination is made, 
with a statement of the reasons for Avhich such officer may have 
been removed.” 

The other four bills also looked to the restraint or reduc¬ 
tion of the President’s power and patronage. It is unne¬ 
cessary now to read them. The report proceeds : 

“The committee do not doubt but that there are many other 
branches of Executive, patronage, in addition to those which are 
comprehended in the provisions of these bills, which might be 
advantageously regulated by law. Par from thinking that they 
have exhausted the subject, they believe that they have only 
opened it, and that nothing more can be done at this time than 
to lay the foundation of a system., to be folloxced up and 
completed hereafterf 

Mr. Bond said that, notwithstanding a series of years 
had elapsed, and Mr. Benton and his friends had full power, 
the People had looked in vain for a superstructure on this 
“ foundation of a system” of reform, which this famous 
report proposed to have laid. That same committee, too, 
assert and claim for the Senate “ the control over appoint¬ 
ments to office,” and say they “ believe that they will be 
acting in the spirit of the Constitution in laboring to mul¬ 
tiply the guards and to strengthen the barriers against the 
possible abuse of power.” This is necessary, they say, 
where laws “are executed by civil and military officers, by 
armies and navies, by courts of justice, and by the collec¬ 
tion and disbursement of revenue, with all its train of 
salaries, jobs, and contracts; and where, in this aspect of 
the reality, we behold the working of patronage, and dis¬ 
cover the reason why so many stand ready, in any country 
and in all ages, to flock to the standard of power, whereso¬ 
ever and by whomsoever it may be raised.” The number 
of office holders is spoken of as large and still rapidly in¬ 
creasing, and the report proceeds : “ Each person employed 
will have a circle of greater or less diameter, of which he 
is the centre and soul—a circle composed of friends and 
relations, and of individuals employed by himself on pub¬ 
lic or on private account.” By way of illustrating the great 
number of office-holders and their combined power, Mr. 
Benton then turns to the “ Blue Book of the Republic,” 
which he also calls “ a growing little volume,” and says it 
“ corresponds with the Red Book of monarchies.” 

Mr. Speaker, this Blue Book is indeed a “ growing little 
volume,” but it has grown more rapidly in the nine years 
of this Government, administered under the advice of Mr. 
Benton and his friends, than it did in double that time, be-' 
fore they came into power. I present now, sir, for your 
inspection, the Blue Book for 1828, and that for the last 
year, 1837, It is plain that the last is nearly or quite 
double the size of the former; and if the contents of the 







2 


two are compared, the number of office holders, their salaries 
and compensation, the various divisions and subdivisions of 
every Department, it will be seen that, under this boasted 
system of retrenchment and reform, nothing has been cur¬ 
tailed, but, on the contrary a great increase in the number 
of officeholders, withincreased salaries. To this, too, is to be 
added a most alarming addition in all the public expendi¬ 
tures of the country, greatly exceeding in amount the ex¬ 
penses of that Administration which was charged as 
wasteful! And if this state of things is not checked in 
time, we may yet realize that this Blue Book not only 
“corresponds with,” but has actually become, the “Red 
Book of a Monarchy,” in this our boasted republic! 

Mr. Benton, in his report, exhibits a list, taken from the 
Blue Book of 1825, of all the officers, with their salaries, 
at the Custom-house in the city of New York. The num¬ 
ber thus given is one hundred and seventy-four, and the 
aggregate amount of their compensation is stated $119,620- 
39. He then exclaims— 

“ A formidable list, indeed !—formidable in numbers, and still 
more so from the vast amount of money in their hands. The 
action of such a body of men, supposing them to be animated 
by one spirit, must be tremendous in an election ; and that they 
will be so animated is a proposition too plain to need demonstra¬ 
tion. Power over a man’s support has always been held and 
admitted to be power over his will. The President has ‘power’ 
over the ‘support’ of all these officers, and they again have 
power over the support of debtor merchants to the amount of 
ten millions of dollars per annum, and over the daily support of 
an immense number of individuals, professional, mechanical, 
and day-laboring, to whom they can and will extend or deny 
a valuable private as well as public patronage, according to the 
part they shall act in Slate as well as in Federal elections.” 

And to all this, the report still adds the Naval and Mili¬ 
tary Establishment, the Judiciary, the Post Office, and 
presses, with what it calls the “ unknown and unknowable 
list of jobbers and contractors; and the still more inscruta¬ 
ble list of expectants who are waiting for ‘ dead men’s shoes, 
and willing in the mean while to do any thing that the 
living men wish.” Having thus glowingly described the 
state of patronage, and the subservient league and unprin¬ 
cipled devotion|of the office-holders, Mr. Benton then says : 

“The power of patronage unless checked by the vigorous 
interposition of Congress, must go on increasing, until Federal 
influence in many parts of this Confederation will predominate 
in elections as completely as British influence predominates in 
the elections of Scotland and Ireland, in rotten borough towns, 
and in the great naval stations of Portsmouth and Plymouth.” 

We are also told by Mr. Benton that “ the whole of this 
great power will centre in the President,” and the report 
then warns the country in these impressive terms: 

“ The King of England is the ‘ fountain of honor;’ the Pre¬ 
sident of the United States is the source of patronage. He 
presides over the entire system of Federal appointments, jobs, 
and contracts; he has ‘ power’ over the ‘support’ of (he indivi¬ 
duals who administer the system. He makes and unmakes 
them. He druses from the circle of his friends and supporters, 
and may dismiss them, and, upon all the -principles of human 
action, will dismiss them, as often as they disappoint his expec¬ 
tations. His spirit will animate their actions in all the elec¬ 
tions to State and Federal offices. There may be exceptions, 
but the truth of a general rule is proved by the exception. The 
intended check and control of the Senate, without new consti¬ 
tutional or statutory provisions, will cease to operate. Pa¬ 
tronage will penetrate this body, subdue its capacity of re¬ 
sistance, chain it to the car of power, and enable the President 
to rule as easily and much more securely with (Iran without the 
nominal check of the Senate !” “ We must look forward to the 

time when the nomination of the President can carry any man 
through the Senate, and his recommendation can carry any mea¬ 
sure through the two Houses of Congress; when the principle 
of public action will be open and avowed—the President wants 
my vote, and I want his patronage ; / will vote as he wishes, 
and he will give me the office I wish for. What will this be 
but the Government of one man? and what is the Government 
of one man but a monarchy 1” 

Mr. Bond said he hoped the House would pardon him 
lor reading from this report these passages, which so hap¬ 
pily illustrate the growth’ and power of patronage. They 
were referred to for the purpose of sustaining the allega¬ 


tion which he had made, that the present dominant party 
professed to entertain serious fears for the perpetuity or 
security of our institutions and liberty, if this public pa¬ 
tronage was not checked or restrained by some statutory 
remedies, which they submitted for consideration, and pro* 
mised to adopt, at some convenient season, if placed in 
power. Well, sir, they succeeded, and got the administra¬ 
tion of our Government into their own hands : and what 
has the country realized '? Why, the number of custom¬ 
house officers at New York has grown from 174 to 414 ! 
and their compensation is increased from $119,062 39 to 
$409,669 32! But, besides their stated compensation, it 
appears that in the year 1836 the various subordinate offi¬ 
cers of the New York custom-house were allowed among 
them upwards of $53,000! And the Collector at Phila¬ 
delphia, during the same year, received, beyond his salary, 
upwards of $3,000; the same officer in Boston upwards of 
$2,300; and many others very considerable sums, which I 
will not take time to specify. 

We thus realize the inordinate and dangerous increase 
in this branch of patronage, foretold by the report. What 
has been done to limit and restrain this patronage 1 
Where is the statutory remedy, the bill which was report¬ 
ed for that purpose! Sir, it has had quiet repose, and has 
never been heard of since the success of “ the party.” 
The moment power was obtained, the admission made in 
the report, that the Senate had control over appointments 
is denied in practice; and the right asserted by the 
committee, to call on the President for his reasons in case 
of a removal from office, is now scoffed at and contemned 
by Mr. Benton, Mr. Van Buren, and the whole party who 
made or approved that report! Mr. Van Buren was one 
of the committee by whom that report was made ; and yet 
he and his party openly violate and disregard every prin¬ 
ciple it urged ! He now holds the “ power^’ over the 
“ support” of these trained bands of office-holders at New 
York and throughout the country. “ Pie makes and un¬ 
makes them ;” and “ his spirit will animate their actions in 
all elections.” Almost the first notice we have of the ap¬ 
pointment of Jesse Hoyt to the Collector’s office in New 
York is the annunciation of his official presence and acti¬ 
vity in the charter election of that city. We hear of him 
by day and by night, heading his cohort of 414 office¬ 
holders, with the 1,000 expectants, and leading them to 
the charge! Mr. Van Buren told us, in the report, that 
“ the action of such a body of men, supposing them to be 
animated by one spirit, must be tremendous in an elec¬ 
tion;” and that they would be so animated, he said, was 
“ a proposition too plain to need demonstration.” But I 
suppose, he wishes us to believe that in his hands all this 
power and patronage will be harmless ! The case of the 
New York Collector furnishes my answer to this: and, if 
another illustration is needed, I refer you, Mr. Speaker, to 
the appointment of Mr. Wolf to the Collector’s office in 
Philadelphia. That gentleman, you know, sir, after hold¬ 
ing the honorable place of Governor of Pennsylvania, 
proudly called the Keystone State, was seduced here for a 
paltry clerkship. We heard recently, that he was di.s6atis- 
fied in the contrast between the place given him and that 
provided for his political rival, (Mr. Muhlenberg.) Gover¬ 
nor Wolf, it was said, had resolved to withdraw, and gave 
some indication of hostility to the President. At this junc¬ 
ture the power of patronage is invoked—the Collector at 
Philadelphia is made to take the clerkship at Washington, 
and Governor Wolf’s opposition is quieted in the Collec¬ 
tor’s office, thus vacated. In an instant a new allegiance 
is sworn, and Governor Wolf initiates himself in his new 
office, by heading^ call for a political meeting in the city 
of his official duties ! Who does not see the peculiar fit¬ 
ness of the suggestion before quoted from the report of 
Mr. Van Buren and others of the Select Committee— 
“ The President wants my rote, and 1 want his patron¬ 
age; I will vote as he icishes, and he will give me the of¬ 
fice 1 wish ybr.” 

Mr. Speaker, I will now add a remark or two, and pass 
from this report. The committee who made it consisted of 
Mr. Benton, Mr. Macon, Mr. Van Buren, Mr. White, 
Mr. Findlay, Mr. Dickerson, Mr. Holmes, Mr. Hayne, 





3 



■?.nd Mr. Richard M, Johnson, all at the time the zealous 
friends ot General Jackson, except, perhaps, Mr. Holmes. 
They urged the impropriety of appointing members of Con¬ 
gress to office and the expediency of providing against it. 
From the moment they came into power their report and 
professions are forgotten, and in four years they appoint 
more members of Congress to office than had been done in 
all the previous history of the Government. They also 
told the country, in that report, that the press, the post 
office, the armed force, and the appointing power, were 
the most dangerous portions of the Federal Executive pa¬ 
tronage. And they professed to have found a remedy for 
these dangers in certain bills which they submitted. They 
there tell us, too, that all this power is in the hands of the 
President, and that he is not in the hands of the People. 
Indeed, they say, the President may, and, in the current 
ot human affairs, will he against the People f and the con¬ 
clusion of the whole is, “ the safety of the People is the 
‘ supreme law,’ and to ensure that safety these arbiters of 
hyman fate (the press, the post office, the armed force, and 
the appointing power) must change position, and take post 
on the side of the People.” Mr. Speaker, we have found 
It true, indeed, that the President is not in the hands of 
the People, and that he will even turn against them ! Look, 
sir, at Mr. Van Buren’s December message, and see the 
opprobrium which he casts upon the People of his own 
State for daring to exercise their elective franchise con¬ 
trary to his will! Notwithstanding his professions, and 
the pledged faith of his report, he violently retains the 
control of these “ arbiters of human fate,” and will not 
suffer them “ to change position and take post on the side 
of the People!” 

Mr. Bond said he would next point the attention of gen¬ 
tlemen to what had passed in this House on the subject of 
retrenchment and reform; and he regretted to find such 
marvellous discrepancy between the “ sayings and doings” 
of “the party,” on that subject. The journals of the 
House show that in February, 1828, a select committee 
was appointed to consider and report on this whole matter: 
the gentlemen appointed were Mr. Hamilton, Mr. Ingham, 
Mr. Rives, Mr. Wickliffe, Mr. Cambreleng, Mr. Sergeant, 
and Mr. Everett, all friends of General Jackson, save the 
two last. They were charged to inquire into the whole 
machinery of the Government, with a view to reduce its 
expenses and patronage, and to correct all abuses. They 
engaged in and devoted themselves to this task ; their re¬ 
port, I mean the report of the four avowed reformers, pro¬ 
fessed to the country that the public expenditures at home 
and abroad were unnecessarily great; that every thing 
was done on too grand a scale ; that each department had 
loo many clerks and spent too much money ; that this was 
also the case in Congress, whose sessions were needlessly 
prolonged ; and, by way of correcting this latter evil, they 
recommended that “ the compensation of members, during 
the first session of each Congress, be reduced to S2 per 
day, from and after the first Monday in April, if Congress 
should sit beyond that day.” 

Mr. Bond said he would not read the report to the 
House, but he hoped this notice of it might aid in recalling 
it to public recollection, whereby it would be seen how 
much had been proposed and how little had been done. 
Here, too, it will be found, that in concert with their co- 
laborers in the Senate, the House reformers describe most 
graphically the extent and power of patronage, and for all 
their discovered abuses they suggest remedies. But, Mr. 
Speaker, great as this work was represented to be, the gen¬ 
tleman from New York (Mr. Cambreleng) and his friends 
told the country in this report that they had made only a 
beginning, what in hunters’ phrase is called a mere “ prim¬ 
ing.” They then inform us that nothing more in the way 
of reform could be done by them, until the People should 
drive from the citadel of power those who then held it, and 
place it under the control of these zealous reformers. This 
was done. This specious report, like its twin-sister of the 
Senate, was trumpeted aloud by its friends, and at public 
expense, under the order of the House, many thousand co¬ 
pies of it were scattered throughout the country. The 


People read, and, honestly believing it, took the alarm, and 
placed these reformers in power. 

And now, Mr. Speaker, after your undisturbed posses¬ 
sion for nine years, what has been done 1 Have you re¬ 
duced any expenditure, corrected any abuse, or provided 
any restraint on the power of patronage ? No, sir, no. 
But, on the contrary, your party in power have made all 
public expenditures greater than before; you have prac¬ 
tised the very abuses of power of which you complained, 
and have not provided any restraint on Executive patron¬ 
age! We have thus a practical illustration ofthe abuse of 
the identical power of which your friends, when sounding 
the alarm, gave only a theoretic description. 

Mr. B. said the resolution now under consideration still 
looked to reform, and especially to the correction of the 
abuse of power in regard to the public printing. The gen¬ 
tleman who offers it, (Mr. Hopkins,) though acting with 
the Administration generally, is not blind to the abuses 
which may be committed. He is still demanding reform 
from principle, and is not satisfied that abuses have been 
corrected by a simple change of men. I am surprised, Mr. 
Speaker, to find this resolution opposed by the Administra¬ 
tion. The gentleman from New Hampshire (Mr. Cush¬ 
man) resists it on most extraordinary grounds. He admits 
abuses, but says it is impracticable to correct them, and 
therefore useless to pass the resolution. Is it possible that 
such an objection can be openly avowed and sustained 
here I The gentleman says it is the usage of party to dis¬ 
pose of this patronage in its own way, and that he never 
heard of any complaint against Mr. Adams’s Administra¬ 
tion for so doing. Here, sir, is another open avowal of the 
doctrine, “ that the spoils belong to the victors.” 

[Mr. Cushman here explained, and observed he had not 
said the spoils belong to the victors.] 

Mr. Bond admitted that the gentleman had not used those 
identical words, but this was the doctrine of the party 
with which he acted, and a distinguished member of that 
party, now the Governor of New York, (Mr. Marcy,) had, 
when a member of the Senate of the United States, openly 
used those terms, and justified this usage of party. The 
friends of the Administration uniformly practised under 
this precept, whatever may be their theory. I do not wish 
to do the gentleman from New Hampshire any injustice, 
and will read from his remarks as published, and he will 
then have an opportunity of correcting them, if erroneously 
printed. The gentleman is reported as having said: 

“ It was well known, that since the establishment of the 
Government the dominant party, whichever it might be, hadin- 
varibly employed what has been called, if you please, partisan 
printers and partisan editors. But lohy should they not do so ? 
So long as the Opposition had the predominancy, they used to 
supply their own pai'tisan printers, and no complaint wa made 
about it: and why should any complaint arise noic ? He 
saw no reason for it.” 

Here, then, I think, sir, a position is taken and terms used 
in effect the same, and tending directly to the doctrine that 
the “ spoils belong to the victors.” But can it be possible 
that the gentleman thinks he is correct and sustained by 
the facts, when he says that no complaint was made against 
Mr. Adams’s Administration on account of the exercise of 
the printing patronage I Has he forgotten that Isaac Hill, 
the present Governor of his own State, was the editor and 
publisher of a newspaper called “ the New Hampshire Pa¬ 
triot,” and that the discontinuance of the publication of the 
laws in that paper wasconsidered so outrageous a persecution 
for opinion’s sake, thatitmay almost be saidtohavegivenhim 
his subsequent poliiical elevation and consequence J The 
discontinuance of Isaac Hill as printer of the laws was 
occasioned, too, by his publishing a libel on the lady of the 
President, without the least semblance of truth, and so 
grossly indecent.that Mr.Randolph, though a zealous opposer 
of Mr. Adams, said it ought not even to be read on this floor. 
The occasion, however, was seized, to bring the subject of 
public printing under discussion in this House, and Mr. 
Saunders, of North Carolina, introduced a resolution call¬ 
ing upon the Secretary of State to report what changes 
hadibcen made in the newspapers printing the laws, to- 





4 


gether with his reasons for such changes. A long and 
spirited debate followed ; and as gentlemen seem to have 
such imperfect recollection of the events of that day, some 
little reference may perhaps be usefully made to what was 
said in that debate. It will be observed that the resolution 
of Mr. Saunders, and those who supported it, required 
reasons to be given for a removal from office. Since they 
came, into power, however, that doctrine has been denied 
and repudiated. 

Mr. Bond said he proposed to prove by this debate that 
the present Administration came into power declaring that 
the printing patronage of the Government was inordinate 
and dangerous; that it ought to be restrained and regulated 
by law; and, in fine, promising, if elevated, to withdraw 
its exercise from the Executive hands. The mover of that 
resolution (Mr. Saunders) said : 

“ I trust I shall not be accused of getting up this call for 
purposes of effect, nor be told this is a small business.” ” He 
was not to be told that the pecuniary amount involved in this 
matter was too small to influence the editors of this countrj’.” 
“The total sum thus distributed could not amount to less than 
between twenty and thirty thousand dollars.” “There were 
eighty-two papers employed in publishing the laws;” “it 
was not of the expense that he complained, but of the purpose 
by which it was controlled.” “ it was thus calculated to ope¬ 
rate, and did actually operate, so far as it went, to control the 
freedom of the press, and to enlist, throughout the country, 
that powerful instrument in behalf of the views of the State 
Department. In this respect, it was much more effectual and 
much more dangei'ous than the far-famed alien and sedition 
laws.” 

Mr. Saunders concluded by saying that it was his “in¬ 
tention to take this power from the State Department, and 
place it elsewhere.” A member from Tennessee, (Mr. 
Houston,) afterwards Governor of that State, and now 
the President of Texas, sustained Mr. Saunders’s resolu¬ 
tion, and denied the right of the Secretary of State to 
change the publication of the laws for opinion’s sake. He 
alleged that the practice of that Department “ had been to 
allow an individual, who might be personalty opposed to 
the views and opinions of the Head of the Department, if 
he was honest and capable as a public officer, to retain his 
place.” He asked “if changes had been made in order 
that the patronage of the Government may flow in a par¬ 
ticular channel ^ Such a course would gag the free ex¬ 
pression of opinion.” He said: 

“ Patronage is not a thing local and circumscribed. It seeks 
every little ramification into which it can by any possibility in¬ 
sinuate itself. It is like the progress of a cancer in the human 
body; it seizes on every vein and artery, one after another, 
nor stops its progress till the sufferer sinks, and then the knife 
is too late applied.” 

Next came Mr. Hamilton, of South Carolina, the chair¬ 
man of that retrenchment committee to which I have al¬ 
ready alluded. That gentleman said : 

“These eighty-two presses would be put on the diet of a 
wholesome regimen, and in the course of a salutary discipline. 
The sturdy and independent would be turned out to be fed on 
such offals as they might be able to pick up, until the whole 
pack should open in full and harmonious cry, in one common 
note, from the sturdy mastiff that howls at the door of the Trea¬ 
sury, to the most starveling turnspit that barks on the farthest 
verge of our frontier.” 

Mr. Bond said he would not stop to inquire whether 
we did now realize, in the present official organ, the 
Globe, “ that sturdy mastiff that howls at the door of the 
Treasury.” Mr. Hamilton continued : 

“ Is it necessary that the Executive should have a Govern¬ 
ment press, to be paid for by the People out of the public cof¬ 
fers, to sustain the measures of the Adminstration, whether 
right or wrong ?” “ If,” said he, “ a Secrctai'y of State can so 

apply the patronage of the Government as to nourish to venal 
accord eighty-two presses in our country to praise every thing 
the Administration should do, and subject their proprietors to 
the punishment of the loss of this patronage if they dare to 
censure its measures, this forms distinctly a Government press, 
which is more alarming to the liberties of the People than the 
organization of the whole of Gen. Brown’s army of six thou¬ 
sand men, formed into a guard of the palace. If eighty-two 


presses can be made to speak as it were in one voice that all 
that the Government does is excellent, and all those who are 
opposed to them say is false and factions, this constant com¬ 
bined and concerted language will soon have a tendency to 
make those who hear little else believe all this is true.” 

Mr. Bond hoped the House would pardon him for this 
long extract. Mr. Hamilton, from whose speech it is ta¬ 
ken, was at the time a friend of Gen. Jackson, and zeal¬ 
ously engaged in elevating him to power. In thus describ¬ 
ing the Government patronage over the press, that gent.*'e- 
man said he was inerely warning the countr)^ of dangers 
which might be realized, if no restraint was imposed on that 
patronage. General Jackson was elevated, and Mr. Van 
Bciren succeeded him, and is now in power. Instead of 
eighty-two presses thus employed by the Government, they 
have now considerably upwards of one hundred, and the 
patronage is held and exercised without any manner of 
checker restraint. In this, surely, the country was disap¬ 
pointed. 

But you, also, Mr. Speaker, took part in that debate, and 
warned the country of the danger of this patronage, and 
the necessity of restraining it. I hope, sir, it will not be 
out of order to draw on your remarks, in aid of my present 
purpose. The sentiments which you expressed are perfect¬ 
ly just, and must command the approbation of all impartial 
minds. 

I have preferred, sir, sustaining the resolution now under 
consideration by the arguments and illustrations of the 
friends of General Jackson, rather than to attempt any new 
suggestions. 

You will remember, Mr. Speaker, that some friend of Mr. 
Clay, the then Secretary of State, intimated that the resolu¬ 
tion of Mr. Saunders savored somewhat of the Spanish in¬ 
quisition. At this your indignation was aroused, and you 
exclaimed : 

“ Inquisitorial, sir ! And has the time arrived in this country 
when it is deemed inquisitorial respectfully to ask a public offi¬ 
cer, who is responsible to the People whose representatives we 
are, for the public reasons (not the private motives) of his pub¬ 
lic conduct? Is it insulting to demand of a public officer to ex¬ 
plain and account for his conduct? Is the transatlantic doc¬ 
trine, that “ the King can do no wrong,” to be introduced here 1 
Though we have no alien and sedition laws, are we to have 
what is tantamount to them ? Are the public functionaries of the 
Government to be wrapped up in the robes of office, and to be 
held irresponsible to the People or the People’s representatives? 
And are all those who have firmness and independence enough 
fearlessly to inquire into the conduct of public men, and the 
manner in which the public money is expended, to be denoun¬ 
ced by the partisans and seivile adherents of the house that 
now reigns, as factious oppositionists? Sir, (you continued, Mr. 
Speaker,) this [ ower of appointing the public printer is impro¬ 
perly lodged where it is. It is, to say the least of it, subject to 
abuse, and may be improperly used for the purpose of muzzling 
and influencing the liberty of the press.” 

That being the case, you proposed, sir, “ to remove this 
power of appointment from the Department of State, and 
vest it somewhere else, where it would be more safely and 
properly exercised.” The country is aware, Mr. Speaker, 
that you have continued to be a member of this House ever 
since you made the remarks just quoted, now more than 
eleven years. Some expectation was cherished tliat you 
would, when in a majority here, practise under these opin¬ 
ions, and remove this printing patronage “ from the De¬ 
partment of State, and vest it somewhere else, where it 
would be more safely and properly exercised.” I am sorry, 
sir, that this public expectation has been disappointed. I 
can only account for it by supposing that your various poli¬ 
tical engagements and high public station have withdrawn 
your attention from this important subject. There is some 
consolation, however, in knowing that 5 'ou have now an 
opportunity of redeeming your pledge, and the friends of 
retrenchment and reform indulge the hope that you will 
do it. 

I hope you, sir, will not think this an “inquisitorial” 
measure. It is, indeed, true that when the representatives 
of the People, during the last session of Congress, at¬ 
tempted to look into the dej&rtments of the Government, 



Qen. Jackson openly resistec it, and said such a measure 
was “worse than the Spanish inquisition.” More, sir; he, 
in effect, gave orders that it should not be tolerated. Mr. 
Speaker, did not your cheek then mantle with honest in¬ 
dignation 1 and it you had held a seat here, instead of the 
chair you occupy, would you not have again exclaimed, 
“ Is the transatlantic doctrine, that ‘the King can do no 
wrong,’ to be introduced here I” Or were you constrained 
to admit that, under the boasted system of reform, “ the 
public functionaries of the Government” are now “ wrap¬ 
ped up in the robes of office,” and “ held irresponsible to 
the People or the People’s representatives'?” 

Mr. B. said he hoped he had, by this time, furnished 
some evidence to the House, and to the gentleman from 
New Hampshire, (Mr. Cushm.4.n,) in particular, that the 
exercise of this printing patronage by Mr. Adams’s Ad¬ 
ministration, was not only questioned, but openly con¬ 
demned. The friends of Gen. Jackson, so far from pre¬ 
tending that it was impracticable to correct the abuse of 
this power, pledged themselves to the country, that they 
could and would, when in a majority, provide a remedy. 
He would submit it to the People to say, whether this had 
been done. Was it not notorious that the extent of this 
printing patronage had been greatly enlarged under the 
present dominant party '? Is not the number of newspapers 
in which the laws are printed very considerably increased! 
Is not the ordinary printing patronage of the several de¬ 
partments far greater now than formerly! And, as to the 
public printing for Congress, it had so swollen, under the 
promised retrenchment, that we were almost induced to 
believe that the term was used in irony by those from 
whom the People expected economy. 

I now propose, Mr. Speaker, to show what seductive in¬ 
fluences this patronage over the press carries with it; and, 
for this purpose, I must again invoke the aid of the Jack- 
son reformers, using their own arguments, and the very 
language in which they admonished the country of the 
base uses which would made of this power. I hope gen¬ 
tlemen will remember the remarks made on this subject, 
and which I have already given to the House, from the 
speech of Mr. Hamilton, the chairman of the Committee 
on Reform. I reserved for the present branch of the ar¬ 
gument a peculiarly striking and descriptive passage in the 
speech of Mr. Plouston, before alluded to. He undertakes 
to describe an honest, independent editor, of good princi¬ 
ples, and deserved influence, and then adds, that such an 
editor as this 

, “May not be disposed to bow or bend his principles for the 
sake of supporting a particular Administration or individual. It 
may be necessary to certain plans and interests, that such a 
man as this should be gagged or prostrated. In that case, a ve¬ 
ry politic course would be to start a new papersome few months 
before nevv patronage is to be conferred; to use every exertion 
to obtain for it a sufficient number of subscribers ; to take mea¬ 
sures that, at all hazards, the paper be sustained ; then to get 
for the editor some true and trusty fellow—a fellow that will 
‘ go the whole who is troubled with no principles on any sub¬ 
ject, but who will support a certain interest ‘ through thick and 
thin ;’ who will pursue no course of his own, but will ever be 
ready to take his cue from a certain quarter. After getting him 
some one or two hundred subscribers, and using every expedi¬ 
ent to make him some character, he must then have the printing 
of the laws, as a token of the confidence of the Government, 
and then all will be ready for action. Sir, I will not say that 
such a press is to be established and paid for out of the contin¬ 
gent fund ; I am not warranted in such an assertion ; but I say 
that such a new beginner must have patronage, although it 
be in direct opposition to the interest and wishes of the Peo¬ 
pled 

Thus spoke Mr. Houston in 1827. Let us now pause 
for a moment, Mr. Speaker, and inquire whether those who 
know so well the use and abuse of this power, have 
not proved themselves skilful adepts in its practical appli¬ 
cation. Let us direct our attention to the official newspa¬ 
per, The Globe, and see if Mr. Houston has not most apt¬ 
ly described “ its rise, progress, and present state.” 

We know, sir, that at the commencement of Gen. Jack- 
son’s Administration, the official newspaper was the Uni¬ 


ted States Telegraph, published by Duff Green. Things 
went on pretty smoothly for a while, and until, as was 
said, some jealous rivalry sprung up between the then Vice 
President of the United States and the present President, 
Mr. Van Buren, who was then Secretary of State. It was 
said Green was suspected for cherishing a stronger parti¬ 
ality for the Vice President than for the Secretary of State. 
But I do not profess to be familiar with the causes of this 
family jar. Report said that the Telegraph was not dis¬ 
continued abruptly, as the official organ, but was gradually 
supplanted by the Globe, and its editor, Francis P. Blair, 
brought here for that purpose from Kentucky. Among the 
means resorted to for this purpose, as complained of by the 
Telegraph, were orders or requests to various Postmasters 
throughout the country to furnish lists of its subscribers. 
The Globe was then sent to them, claiming to have the spe¬ 
cial confidence of the party. In this way it was initiated 
into favor among the subscribers of the Telegraph, and in 
due season the latter paper was wholly abjured. I have no 
knowledge of all the measures taken “ that at all hazards 
the paper be sustained,” and will leave it for others who 
know Francis P. Blair better than Ido, to determine whe¬ 
ther the Administration, in furnishing an editor for the 
Globe, succeeded in getting a “ true and trusty fellow, a 
fellow that will ‘ go the whole,’ who is troubled with no 
principles on any subject, hut who will support a certain 
interest ‘through thick and thin.’” This I know, that 
the Administration fostered and cherished the Globe with 
an immense amount of patronage, and in that way gave it 
strength and influence. That paper was first published in 
1831.° The whole amount paid for printing by the Execu¬ 
tive Departments in 1832 and 1833 was ^113,346 21, of 
which 847,245 42 were paid to the Globe, and the residue 
to various other printing establishments, editors, and pub¬ 
lishers throughout the United States. I n 1834 and 1835, the 
whole amount so paid was $83,966 50; of which sum, a 
part, say 840,473 16, was paid to the Globe, and the residue 
again divided as before. For the next two years, ending 
with September, 1837, the several Executive departments 
paid out, for printing, the enormous sum of $142,804 68! 
Of this, the Globe received $24,381 27, and the balance 
was divided and subdivided—the spoil being thus given 
in due proportions among the whole pack, from “ the 
sturdy mastiff that howls at the door of the Treasury,” 
down “to the most starveling turnspit that barks on the 
farthest verge of our frontier.” 

But it will be observed that, so far, I have stated the 
amount of the Executive patronage of the press only. In 
December, 1835, the Globe obtained the printing for the 
House of Representatives, and for the two years ending 
on the 30th September, 1837, its editors or publishers were 
paid, on that account, $105,914 53 I! It thus appears that, 
for the last six years, the Globe newspaper has received 
from the Government, as the published documents prove, 
nearly $220,000. What it has received indirectly, and 
from office-holders and expectants, no one can tell. I will 
not designate each of the innumerable host of editors and 
printers on whom this patronage has been showered. Ma¬ 
ny of them have received small sums; others, again, do not 
quite equal the Globe editors ; but I will name a few who 
seem to be among the preferred, and then leave it for their 
readers to say whether their papers can be supposed to be 
under the wholesome regimen of Treasury diet. 

I find that Hill & Barton, of New Hampshire, have re¬ 
ceived, in about six years, between 7,000 and 88,000. Du- 
rino- the same time, Shadrach Penn, jr. of Kentucky, has 
bee“n paid about $10,000, nearly the half of which has been 
paid within the last two years. During the same time, the 
firms of True & Green, C'has. G. Green, and Beals & Green, 
of Boston, have been paid $27,204 76 ! In the course of 
two years, Medary & Manypenny were paid $2,958 66; 
Paine & Clark $2,837 53; Mifflin & Parry, of Philadel¬ 
phia, $1,822 26; Medary, Reynolds, & Medary 81,584; 
and Samuel Medary & Brothers, all of Ohio, $2,002. All 
these payments were made by the Post Office Depart¬ 
ment; and, in addition to this printing patronage, some of 
these parties enjoyed advantageous contracts in the same 



G 


Department, for the supply of “ paper and twine,” connect¬ 
ed with their printing of blanks. These contracts for 
“ blanks, paper, and twine,” when examined, as they were 
by the committees of investigation, disclosed the practice of 
most reprehensible partiality in the Postmaster General for 
certain political favorites. I have not examined to see if 
the other Departments did not simultaneously bestow a 
part of their printing patronage on these same individuals. 
This further fact, however, is disclosed by the printing ac¬ 
counts of these Departments: that, for some time past, they 
have thrown large portions oftheir patronage into the hands 
of Langtree & O’Sullivan, of this city, who are publishing 
a periodical journal, the “ Democratic Review ,which pro¬ 
fesses to be a literary work, but, at the same time, devotes 
its columns to the cause and defence of the Administration, 
with a zeal equalled only by the Globe, and, in at least one 
of its articles recently published, shows as little regard for 
justice and truth, I think, as that paper does. 

The Executive patronage of the press was one of the 
great chapters of reform into which the famous retrench¬ 
ment report of this House was divided. It is there stated 
as an alarming fact, that the amount paid for printing and 
advertising “ by the Executive Departments at the seat of 
Government for the [then] three last years, (1825, 1826, 
and 1827,) and by the General Post Office, in two years, 
was 5B71,830 51.” In the same report, we are also told that 
the printing for Congress, the Senate and House included, 
from March, 1819, to December, 1827, being a period of 
eight years, amounted toS271,883 37. These were thought 
to be extravagant expenditures, and retrenchment demand¬ 
ed and promised. 

I beg the House to indulge me a few moments in hold¬ 
ing up to their view, and especially to the gentleman from 
New York, (Mr. Cambreleng,) who was an active mem¬ 
ber of that committee, a mirror, in which the practical re¬ 
form may be seen. If the gentleman, or the party, shall 
find the object a hideous one, I can only say the picture re¬ 
flected is the work of their own hands. 

For the six years ending on 30th September, 1837, the 
several Executive Departments, inclusive of the General 
Post Office, paid out 8340,116 37 for their printing. In 
order to get three years, so as to compare it with the term 
and amount before stated by the committee, let us take half 
oftheS340,116 37, say - - - 8170,058 18 

Deduct the amount stated by the com¬ 
mittee, .... 71,830 51 


Amount of increase every three years by 
the Reformers, . _ . ^*98,227 67 

I also find that, in six years ending on the 30th day of 
September, 1837, the printing for Congress, (Senate and 
House,) and inclusive of certain land documents, books, 
and engraving, amounted to S'751,584 62. Let us deduct 
the amount reported by the committee as paid for the same 
object in eight years by the Administration which was con¬ 
demned for its extravagance—that wasS271,883 37. That 
operation will show that the Reformers have paid, in the 
legislative patronage of the press, $479,701 25 more in six 
years than the Whig party paid in eight years!! 

Having thus shown the amount of, and how this pa¬ 
tronage is now used by the Executive, it will be appropri¬ 
ate to see what the friends of Gen. Jackson said would be 
the consequence of such use. The committee, in their re¬ 
port, speak of the moral mechanism upon which this pa¬ 
tronage acts “ as a power that seems irresistible,” and say 
they “ will not stop to argue what they predicate as an un¬ 
deniable fact, that, by the employment of the expenditures 
of the contingent funds of the departments, a Government 
press is to all intents and purposes effectually established, 
as much so as if there were an annual item in the appro¬ 
priation bill for the purpose of purchasing the joint and 
harmonious action of one hundred papers in the uncom¬ 
promising vindication of those in power, and in the unspar¬ 
ing abuse of those who are not.” And in the debate al¬ 
ready referred to, Mr. Hamilton, one of the reformers, in 
speaking of payment for the services of the press, observ¬ 
ed ; "When the Government becomes the paymaster for 


these services, the evil is infinitely augmented. For, what 
are the services which the pi ess under such circumstances 
is expected to render as a return for the partial kindness 
of the Government? Why, to cover all their approaches 
to arbitrary power ; to defend each measure of misrule and 
corruption ; to find excuses and apologies for every act of 
imbecility, although the interest and honor of the country 
may be jeoparded by ignorance, apathy, or neglect; but, 
above all, to subject those who do not think ‘ the existing 
powers ’ entitled to the confidence of the People to the 
most unsparing calumny and abuse.” Mr. Bond said he 
would appeal to the House and to the country if we are 
not now experiencing daily the practical application of 
what Mr. Hamilton mentioned as a possible state of things. 
Is not his description of a subsidized press in the hands of 
the Government so graphically true of the present Admin¬ 
istration and its press that it might justly be conjectured 
that they sat for the picture? Every day’s experience 
shows that all who oppose the present Administration are 
"subjected to the most unsparing calumny and abuse.” 
Another of the Jackson reformers in this House, Mr. 
Floyd, of Virginia, observed in debate here, that " the 
Executive influence in this Government was very great, 
and had been exerted to calumniate members in this House 
as well as great and wise men out of the House.” He 
said "it had been attempted to cut them off by dark innu¬ 
endoes,” and that " hireling scribblers had been paid di¬ 
rectly or indirectly for performing the task.” 

Mr. Speaker, have we not felt and seen the sad reality 
of all this for the last nine years, but more particularly 
since Mr. Van Buren undertook " the improvement of the 
press,” and a display of its licentious power in the hired 
columns of the Globe? Who has not been disgusted 
with the course and " unsparing calumny” from day to 
day poured out upon members of Congress, and of the 
Senate in particular, who happened to think that "the ex¬ 
isting powers were not entitled to the confidence of the 
People ?” Who has not seen the attempt in the Govern¬ 
ment press to break down the influence and power of 
" members of Congress,” and " to cut them off by hireling 
scribblers, paid directly or indirectly for performing the 
task?” Does not the Globe constantly charge Mr. Clay, 
Mr. Webster, Mr. Southard, and other Senators as being 
paid by and under the influence of the Bank of the United 
States when engaged in the discharge of their high consti¬ 
tutional duties?” And when these foul slanders are 
howled from the throat of the " sturdy mastiff,” at the 
door of the Treasury, do not the whole kennel, " Tray, 
Blanche, and Sweetheart, little dogs and all,” even to the 
" most starveling turnspit that barks on the farthest verge 
of our frontier,” re-echo the sound ? The Jackson re¬ 
former, Mr. Floyd, spoke of the slanders on members of 
Congress and on other men elsewhere. Why, sir, we 
daily experience that and more. The President and his 
press have gone on from time to time calumniating mem¬ 
bers of Congress and others, individually, and at length 
have got to slandering the People in a body—a kind of 
wholesale slander business. If a Congressional district, in 
the free exercise of its constitutional right, elect a member 
who will not " bow and do obeisance to the party,” he is 
at once proclaimed to be the feed attorney of the bank, and 
the people of the district are stigmatized as " reprieved 
debtors.” 

Here, sir, I desire to read a short paragraph from the 
President’s official newspaper—the Globe. It was printed 
a year since, and then met my eye. I have preserved it 
for the ex[)res3 purpose of noticing it here, on a suitable 
occasion; and this is the first appropriate moment 1 have 
had to do so. The paragraph in question was written on 
the occasion of announcing the election of one of the pre¬ 
sent Senators from Ohio, (Mr. Allen ;) in doing which, 
the Globe exults at what it was pleased to consider a de¬ 
feat of Mr. Ewing, a highly distinguished and most valu¬ 
able member of the Senate. I do not propose to dwell 
on that election; it is foreign to my purpose; but I do veri¬ 
ly believe it was achieved against the wishes of a majority 
of the people of Ohio, and recent events sustain that opin- 





7 


ion. And yet, this man, whom the people of Ohio de¬ 
lighted, and, if the signs of the times do not deceive, will 
again “ delight to honor,” is, at the moment of his retiring 
from the Senate to the bosom of his family, and to all the 
private relations of life, held up and stigmatized in the 
Globe as a “ bank beneficiary.” In the same article, sir, 
some fifteen Senators are opprobriously named and contemn¬ 
ed by this Government press. The State of Alabama is 
particularly congratulated on being relieved from the “ Cal- 
hounery” of Gabriel Moore. But now a new light has 
suddenly opened which wholly changes the medium tnrough 
which the Globe sees “ Calhounery,^^ to use Mr. Blair’s 
own phrase. How long has it been since that paper stig¬ 
matized Mr. Calhoun “ as the bank’s feed instrument,” and 
said of him “ that no man ever nullified the truth with so 
little remorse I” Now, however, the whole scene is chang¬ 
ed, and Mr. Calhoun is almost deified by the very Govern¬ 
ment press which but yesterday had so reviled him ! Here, 
Mr. Speaker, we realize another truth spread before the 
country in Mr. Benton’s report, which, in describing the 
power of the President over individuals administering the 
Government, says: “He makes and unmakes them.” A 
short time since, this Administration and its press stood 
forth the advocates and friends of the State banks, and, af¬ 
ter placing the public money in their custody, urged them 
to lend it out. Having thus “ debauched” and seduced 
them from the “ even tenor of their way,” this same Ad¬ 
ministration and press now abuse the banks and the credit 
system which but yesterday they applauded ; and, to justi¬ 
fy this abuse, falsehood is substituted for fact. The Globe 
a day or two since stated “ that the Legislative examina¬ 
tion in Ohio” proved “ that the directors of the banks there 
had drawn out more than the whole amount of their real 
capital.” This, sir, is another daring and impudent false¬ 
hood of that paper, and furnishes additional evidence of 
the desperation of this Administration and its “ Govern¬ 
ment press,” in carrying out the sub-Treasury system, 
with ail its selfish purposes. The result of the “ Legisla¬ 
tive examination of the banks in Ohio” is fully reported by 
the Auditor of the State, who is a thorough-going disciple 
of the sub-Treasury school. His report is now before me, 
and I invite its immediate inspection. It is most creditable 
to the banks of Ohio; shows them to have been prudently 
managed, and that they will not suffer in comparison with 
those of any State in the Union. But let us look into the 
Auditor’s report, and test the truth of the fact stated by Uie 
Globe, “ that the directors of the banks in Ohio had drawn 
out more than the amount of their real capital.” By the 
Auditor’s report, it appears that the amount of capital stock 
actually paid in these banks in December last was SH,- 
331,618 96, and the whole amount loaned to directors and 
stockholders together, at that time, was only SI>466,174 56. 
I leave it for others to apply the proper rebuke to the Globe 
for its slander of the banks and the people of Ohio; but, 
Mr. Speaker, I appeal to you and to this House if a press 
which is thus basely conducted should be sustained and 
cherished by funds from the public Treasury h 

This same paper took occasion, not long since, to quote 
from some remarks which I had the honor to make in this 
House, and to say it had never intimated that the Senate 
was a useless body. Why, sir, the gross calumny heaped 
by the Globe on the majority of the Senate, but a short 
time since, must be familiar to all. I will not offend so far 
as to read those slanders to the House. The official or¬ 
gan, by its personal abuse of the Senators, and repeated ca¬ 
lumny of the body, did more than give the intimation allu¬ 
ded to. Did not the Globe say of the Senate that “ its 
dignity” was “ impaired”—“ its character for grave consi¬ 
deration gone”—that “its justice” was “ doubted,” and 
its power to harm by its most marked censure “ contemned 
and derided Yes, sir, this was the language held by 
the President’s official press towards the Ameiican Senate, 
and yet that same press now has the effrontery to deny 
that it ever intimated that the Senate was a useless body. 

But, Mr. Speaker, in pursuing the individual slanders of 
the Globe, I have digressed a little from my promise to 
show that the Government press also does a “ wholesale 


slander business,” and throws its poisoned shafts at masses 
of men—yes, sir, at the great body of the People them¬ 
selves. I beg leave now to read that part of the article 
from the Government press which I before alluded to, an¬ 
nouncing the result of the Senatorial election then recent¬ 
ly held in Ohio. Referring to the district which I have 
the honor to represent in this body, the President’s official 
organ says : 

“ The bank held immense power in his [my] diitrict, and 
exerted its moneyed influence in aid of the Federal party, 
which has stronger hold in that quarter than in any other part 
of Ohio. It succeeded by a small majority in electing Mr. 
Bond the collector of its bonds there. He may be looked up¬ 
on as the representative of reprieved debtors'^ 

After the vile slanders which the Government press has 
wantonly heaped upon many of the most eminent and just¬ 
ly distinguished public men of the country, Mr. B. said an 
humble individual like himself should not complain, but 
rather feel honored that he was thus noticed. For himself, 
personally, he would say nothing; but for his district—his 
constituents—for the People, who had honored him with 
their confidence, and made him their representative here, 
he had much to say. He could not, perhaps, express all 
the just indignation that he felt. My constituents, sir, 
(said Mr. Bond,) in every trait of character which can 
justly ennoble man, are not second to those of any mem¬ 
ber in this House. With God’s mercy, and their own right 
arm, they have been the builders of their own fortunes. In 
every sense, they are virtuous, intelligent, and independent 
freemen—“ who know their rights, and, knowing, dare 
maintain them.” They love their country, and revere its 
Constitution; but they have never yet “ bowed the kr>ee to 
Baal;” and because they will not, the editor of this vile 
press, bloated and swollen with Government patronage, 
stigmatizes them as “ reprieved debtors.” Mr. Speaker, 
should this “ hired scribbler,” Francis P. Blair, ever ven¬ 
ture into that district, I do not believe that the People, 
whom he has thus basely slandered, would consent to de¬ 
file their hands by touching him ; but they would cast up¬ 
on him a scornful and withering look of honest and just 
indignation, which would give to his visage a more cadav¬ 
erous aspect than it even now has. But who is this man 
who thus impudently arrays himself against the People 'I 
Why, sir, he is himself a “ reprieved debtor” of the very 
bank which he is every day reviling. Do gentlemen re¬ 
quire proof 7 The files of this House furnish it. A paper 
reported or filed by one of the committees of this House 
shows that this same Francis P. Blair, who was brought 
here from Frankfort, in the State of Kentucky, owed the 
Bank of the United States the sum of j^20,744 36. It is 
true that only a part of this sum was his own debt; never¬ 
theless, on his own account, and as security for others, he 
wasdebtor to that bank, on the 30th day of November, 1830, 
for the whole amount of the sum which I have mentioned. 
Did he pay it ^ No, sir. Does he yet owe it 1 No, sir. 
How was he discharged 7 He compromised, if the terms 
on which he was released are justly entitled to be called a 
compromise. What were those terms 7 Why he held a 
clerk’s fee bill, amounting to $31 42, and a note on a gen¬ 
tleman by the name of Gratz for say, together, 

S237 42, which he gave up to the bank, and was released 
from S20,744 36 ! Now, sir, I think Francis P. Blair may 
justly be called a “ reprieved debtor.” 

Such a settlement proves that Blair was utterly insol¬ 
vent at the close of the year 1830. If his insolvency was 
occasioned by misfortune, he should be pitied rather than 
condemned on that account. Of the circumstances of his 
failure I am ignorant. I refer to his insolvency for what I 
esteem a perfectly just purpose in this debate. We find 
him brought to Washington in 1831, and employed as the 
publisher or editor of the Globe, which is made the Gov¬ 
ernment press. We soon see streams of patronage 
flowing in upon him from all the Executive Departments. 
The extent and character of this patronage I have before 
alluded to. In a brief space of time we see him living and 
entertaining expensively, and going all the rounds of the 
court society at Washington. If Mr. Blair had no con- 




8 


nexion with this Government patronage, he might do all 
this, and no man w'ould be justified in alluding to or com¬ 
menting on it. It is the high prerogative of every freeman 
to do with his own as he pleases. But, Mr. Speaker, the 
sudden change in the fortunes of Mr. Blair, connected as 
he is with Executive patronage, his single leap from insol¬ 
vency to wealth, impel me to inquire if “ there is not some¬ 
thing rotten in Denmark I” Upon the whole, sir, I think 
his case most strongly illustrates the necessity of passing 
the resolution now under consideration, and, if possible, 
making a total separation of the newspaper press from the 
Government. 

At all events, if this shall be found impracticable, wre can 
at least destroy the pet system of exclusive favoritism, by 
inviting competition, and giving the contract “to the low¬ 
est bidder,” as the reforming report of the gentleman from 
New York (Mr. Cambreleng) and his friends induced the 
People to believe would be done. When the retrenchment 
resolutions, which produced the famous report already 
mentioned, were under consideration, the friends of the 
then Administration denied the existence of any abuse, 
but invited investigation, and the resolutions passed 
almost unanimously. Now, however, when the reformers 
are in power, and an investigation is proposed, they admit 
the existence of the evils referred to in the resolution, but 
resist the inquiry, because, as they allege, the abuse cannot 
be corrected! 

The gentleman from New Hampshire (Mr. Cushman) 
may deem this end impracticable. I do not. I would 
rather follow the example of the gallant Col. Miller, (of 
the gentleman’s own State,) who, when ordered on a per¬ 
ilous service on the Niagara frontier, during the war 
of 1812, did not say it was impracticable, but said “ I’ll 
try, sir,” to the commanding General. He did fry, and he 
succeeded. The achievement not only rendered essential 
service at that crisis, but honored his country’s arms, and 
elevated his own fame ! 

In the attempt which the resolution under consideration 
proposes, no danger awaits us, but a great civil triumph 
may be obtained by it. I invite the gentleman from New 
Hampshire to adopt the words of his gallant statesman, 
and, instead of thinking it “impracticable,” let him say 
“ I’ll try.” 

But, sir, we have been greatly disappointed in the failure 
of this promised reform in many other respects besides that 
which regarded the public printing and the Executive pa¬ 
tronage of the press. And, to establish this, I will state 
briefly a few items, contrasting the precept with the prac¬ 
tice oi the reformers. Imitating the example found in the 
report already alluded to, I may be best understood by a 
division of the subject into a few prominent heads. But, 
in the language of that report, I am “ far from thinking 
I shall now exhaust the subject;” I shall “ have only open¬ 
ed it.” I pretend to nothing more “ at this time than to 
lay the foundation of a system, to be followed up and com¬ 
pleted hereafter” by the People. 

The prolonged sessions of Congress formed a conspicu¬ 
ous chapter in the book of reform. The committee denounc¬ 
ed the usage as “ one of the most serious evils attending 
the national legislation of the country;” and, byway of 
correcting it, recommended “ that the compensation of the 
members, during the first session of each Congress, be re¬ 
duced to two dollars per day from and after the first Mon¬ 
day in April, if Congress should sit beyond that time. 
This was the precept; now for the practice. The sessions 
of Congress, so far from being shortened, have been pro¬ 
longed, no remedy applied, and the People of the country 
ought to know that the gentleman from New York, (Mr. 
Cambreleng,) so early as March, 1830, when an attempt 
was made to carry into effect the remedy proposed in the 
report of the committee of which he was a member, by re¬ 
ducing the pay of members, did himself actually resist and 
vote against the measure. 

The report alleged that abuses had “ taken place from 
the various and arbitrary manner in which members esti¬ 
mated their mileage.” This abuse was ascertained to have 
been practised by the reformers themselves; and they have 


continued the practice without any restraint. I will give 
you, sir, an illustration, which may not be thought inap¬ 
propriate. In the days of promised reform, the two Sena¬ 
tors from the State of Missouri differed in politics; one of 
them, the great reformer, Mr.Benton; the other,|M r.Barton, 
who thought the promised reform was a mere humbug. 
The first session of the twentieth Congress commenced the 
3d of December, 1827, and ended on the 26th of May, 
1828. These gentlemen severally attended the whole 
session ; their per diem allowance was $1,400 each, being 
175 days, at 88 per day ; but for mileage, reckoning 88 for 
every twenty miles, Mr. Barton charged ^939 20, whilst 
Mr. Benton charged ^1,344 66. Mr. Barton charged his 
mileage by the great mail route, over land ; but Mr. Ben¬ 
ton, who was railing out and condemning all abuses, count¬ 
ed his miles by all the crooks and turns and tortuous wind¬ 
ings of the Mississippi and Ohio rivers ! Mr. Barton was 
left at home because he did not believe in the propriety of 
professing one thing and practising another; and Mr. 
Benton was retained to correct abuses and cany out the 
great principles of his report on Executive patronage. 
Ten years have intervened since the session of Congress 
just referred to ; the report sleeps unheeded, and, in the 
mean time, Mr. Benton continues to count his miles ev^ery 
year by the way of the river, which has given him upwards 
of S4,000 more than Mr. Barton felt authorized to charge 
under the same law. 

Another precept. —The committee reported that “ the 
privilege of newspapers to the members ought to be abro¬ 
gated ;” and “ that the practice too often indulged in by 
the House of voting to themselves copies of books,” ought 
to be discontinued. The privilege and practice continue, 
and without restraint. 

Precept. —The contingent expenses of this House were 
reported to be extravagant. During the year 1828, the 
last of Mr. Adams’s Administration, they amounted to 
S80,000. 

Practice. —During the year 1836, the lastyear of the Jack- 
son reform Administration, this item was ^200,000! And, 
during the year 1837, being the first year of the “ suc¬ 
cessor,” who promised to “ tread in the footsteps of his 
illustrious predecessor,” these expenses are $210,000 1 
This must be the “magician’s way” of working in the 
rule of reduction—it was ceitainly unknown to old Thomas 
Dilworth. 

Precept. —The committee, of which, I again repeat, the 
gentleman from New York (Mr. Cambreleng) was a 
member, reported that they had obtained information by 
which they were satisfied “ that by a judicious system of 
reform, instituted by the Executive officers themselves, at 
least one-third of the (then) present number of clerks in 
the departments might be reduced with safety to the pub¬ 
lic interest.” 

Practice. —The number of clerks has not been reduced 
in any one of the departments, but, on the contrary, there 
has been a considerable increase. I will prove it. The 
State Department, in the year 1828, included the Patent 
Office, and the whole number of clerks was sixteen : the 
salary and compensation of the Secretary and all his clerks 
and messengers, amounted to $27,750. 

The whole number of clerks now employed in the State 
Department and the Patent Office is forty. The joint sa¬ 
laries and compensation amount to $56,515 !! ! 

The Patent Office, in 1828, was managed by a Superin¬ 
tendent, with a salary of $1,500, and two clerks and a 
messenger, whose joint compensation was 83,700. It is 
now' under the charge of one of the Reformers; the title 
of “ Superintendent” is exchanged for that of “ Commis¬ 
sioner ;” and with the change of titles comes the change 
of salary from $1,500 to $3,000 ! The number of clerks 
is increased from two to twenty-four, and the compensation 
from $1,800 to 821,000; and, not content with one mes¬ 
senger, and his old salary of 8400, they provide a salary of 
8840 for messenger, and then give him an assistant, to 
whom is also paid $15 per month. 

The Secretary of the Treasury, in the year 1828, em¬ 
ployed eight clerks and two messengers. His salary, and 



9 


the compensation of the clerks and messengers, amounted 
to S18,600. 

The present Secretary of that Department (and he was 
taken from the body of reformers, who made proclama¬ 
tion from the Senate Chamber) employs fifteen clerks 
and two messengers. His salary, and their compensation, 
amount to ^27,100 !! A similar result will be found in 
comparing the present with the former state of the several 
subdivisions of the Treasury Department. But, by way 
of “ introducing economy and despatch in the Treasury 
Department,” the committee proposed to “ simplify the 
forms of business,and to reorganize its subordinate branches, 
so as to dispense with one-fourth, if not one-third, of the 
officers in the Treasury.” Now, sir, no reorganization of 
the Department has yet been attempted. Instead of re¬ 
ducing, they have increased the number of officers; and 
the forms of business, under the new mode of simplifying, 
have become so complicated, that the gentleman from New 
York, (Mr. Cambreleng,) now chairman of the Commit¬ 
tee of Ways and Means, declared here, during the last 
special session, that, after fifteen years’ experience as a 
member of this House, he found it difficult to understand 
these Treasury accounts, and the manner in which the 
Secretary’s Annual Report on the Finances is stated !! 

Next, as to the War Department. In 1828, the Secre¬ 
tary of War employed a' chief clerk, besides seventeen 
clerks and two messengers. His salary, and their com¬ 
pensation, amounted to ©28,650. The business of Indian 
affairs was then managed by him also. In 1838, the Sec¬ 
retary of that Department employs, inclusive of the Indian 
business, about forty clerks, besides messengers. The 
joint salaries and compensation of the whole amount to 
©63,810. 

In 1828, we hear nothing of a Commanding General’s 
Office, with its clerk and messenger. 

In 1838, the Commanding General is allowed a clerk at 
© 1 , 200 , and a messenger at 8600 per year. 

In 1828, the Adjutant General’s Office employed three 
clerks, whose joint compensation was ©2,950. 

In 1838, the Adjutant General employs seven clerks and 
a messenger, whose joint compensation is ©8,225. 

In 1828, the Paymaster General employed three clerks, 
whose united compensation was ©3,900. 

In 1838, the salary of the same number of clerks is 
©4,290, besides the messenger’s salary. 

In 1828, I have been unable to discover any allowance 
for clerks to the Gluartermaster General. 

In 1838, that officer employs in the office at Washington 
seven clerks, whose united compensation is ©7,300. 

In 1823, the Ordnance office employed three clerks, 
whose joint salary was ©2,950. 

In 1838, the Ordnance office employs nine clerks, be¬ 
sides a messenger, and their aggregate compensation is 
©9,225. 


In 1828, the Subsistence Department employed four 
clerks, whose joint compensation was ©2,950, 

In 1838, the Subsistence Department employs four clerks, 
and a messenger, whose joint compensation is 85,880. 

In 1828, the Surgeon General was allowed a clerk, at 
81,150 per year. 

In 1838, the Surgeon General is allowed a clerk, at 
81,266, and a messenger, at 8600 per year. 

In 1828, the business of Indian affairs was discharged 
at the War Department, by some one or two of the seven¬ 
teen clerks which I first mentioned. 

In 1838, this Indian business appears to constitute a 
grand division. We now hear of the “Indian Depart¬ 
ment,” with a Commissioner, whose salary is ©3,000, a 
chief clerk, at ©1,600, and eleven clerks, and two messen¬ 
gers, the joint compensation and salaries being ©19,400. 

In 1828, there was one Superintendent of Indian Affairs, 
who was paid ©1,500 a year, tvyenty-one Indian agents, 
twenty-eight sub-agents, and thirty-nine interpreters. 

In 1838, we find four “ superintendents of Indian affairs,” 
with salaries of 8i,500 each per year; s/.r “superinten¬ 
dents ot emigration,” with salaries of 82,000 each per 
year; ien “'Indian agents,” with salaries of ©1,500 


each per year; fourteen “Indian sub-agents,” with 
salaries of ©750 per year; thirty-three “commissioners 
and special agents,” who are paid from ©5 to ©8 per 
day, and from ©1,500 to ©3,000 per year; fifteen 
“conducting and enrolling agents,” at ©3, ©4, and ©5 
per day; two “conductors of exploring parties,” at 83 
and 85 per day; two “ valuing agents,” at ©4 each 
per day; eight “ collecting agents,” at 82 50 per day each; 
two “ issuing agents,” at 81 per day each ; one “ disburs¬ 
ing agent,” at 85 per day ; sixteen “ assistant agents,” at 
83 and ©4 per day, and from ©500 to ©1,200 each per year; 
thirty-one “interpreters at agencies,” at 8300 each per 
year ; fourteen “ interpreters in the emigration of Indians,” 
at ©2 50 and ©3 per day each; fifteen “ physicians,” at 
salaries varying from 83, ©5, and ©6 a day, to 884 per 
month ; eleven “ clerks,” (other than those in the office at 
Washington,) at salaries varying from ©3 and ©5 per day 
to ©40 and 850 per month, and 8800 and ©1,000 per year; 
fifty-three “ black.smiths,” with salaries varying from ©240 
to ©600 per year; twenty “ farmers and assistants,” at 2, 
3, 5 and 8600 per year; eighteen “teachers,” with various 
salaries, from ©500 to ©800 per year ; five “ millers,” with 
salaries of ©500 and ©600; one “ surveyor,” at ©8 per day; 
the whole concluding with five “ miscellaneous agents,” 
with salaries of ©1 per day, and ©600 per year. 

But even this is not all. The Commissioner of Indian 
Affairs says the list given by him in the Blue Book is not 
accurate or complete. He leaves room to add or alter Here, 
indeed, is a display of patronage! Ought we not to be as¬ 
tonished to find this state of things, under an Administra¬ 
tion whose friends professed to be shocked at a multiplica¬ 
tion of offices, and re-published, in the report of this House . 
in 1828, the warning of that Chief Magistrate, who said : 
“ Considering the general tendency to multiply offices and 
dependencies, and to increase expense to the ultimate term , 
of burden which the citizen can bear, it behooves us to avail 
ourselves of every occasion which presents itself for taking 
off the surcharge.” It is appropriate, too, now, to refer 
gentlemen to the censure which that report cast on the 
Secretary of War in 1828, for paying ©753 for additional 
clerk hire in the business of Indian Affairs. 

Mr. B. said he was here tempted to name one or two of¬ 
fices in particular, which seem to have been created for 
special favorites : one of them under the [law authorizing 
the President to sign land patents by an agent, instead of 
doing it as heretofore, in person. If he could not find 
time to do this duty, as Mr. Adams and all his predecessors 
did, then it would have been better to dispense with the 
signature altogether, as you have done with that of the 
Commissioner of the General Land Office. The Presi¬ 
dent’s name now is not even written by his proxy, as it 
should be, but is written by some clerk in the Land Office, 
and the whole service of the proxy or agent consists in his 
writing his own name ! For this he is paid ©1500 per an¬ 
num ! The place is held by one of the President’s sons, 
and it is an indirect mode of increasing the President’s sala¬ 
ry. The compensation is too high, under any circumstan¬ 
ces. For a service requiring neither skill nor talent, and 
employing a very small portion of this young gentleman’s 
time, he receives a higher salary than many of the Gover¬ 
nors and other high officers in the several States do! 

Another office specially created is that of the “ Smithso¬ 
nian agent,” with a salary of ©3,000 a year, and furnishing 
a convenient sojourn for a gentleman wishing to visit Lon¬ 
don. The duties of this place might well have been dis¬ 
charged by ordinary correspondence, but at all events they 
are such as could justly be required at the hands of our 
resident Minister at London. It cannot be overlooked 
that Richard Rush was Secretary of the Treasury, and re¬ 
ceived the censure and condemnation of the Retrenchment 
Committee. And yet Mr. Rush was appointed to the of¬ 
fice of the Smithsonian agent. I will leave it for others to 
apply wbnt the chairman of the Committee on Retrench¬ 
ment said at that day, in debate on this floor: “ Whenever 
an office is to be filled,” “ even a zealous, constant, and 
faithful friend is compelled to yield to a mushroom apostate 
that may have been purchased but yesterday.” 



10 


Let us next compare the Navy Department. Mr. Sou¬ 
thard, who was Secretary of the Navy in 1828, employed 
in his Department seven clerks, besides the chief clerk. 
The salary of the Secretary, and the compensation of the 
clerks and messengers, amounted to Sl'7,250. The De¬ 
partment has been held for many years, and is still mana¬ 
ged by Mr. Dickerson, who was a member of the commit¬ 
tee, in the Senate, from whom came that famous report on 
Executive patronage, to which I first referred. He em¬ 
ploys eight clerks besides the chief clerk ; and his salary, 
with the compensation of his clerks and messengers, 
amounts to $18,850. And, at this very session, he demands 
more clerks, and an increase in the salary of some of those 
he already has. 

The committee censure Mr. Secretary Southard for un¬ 
necessary expense in subscription for newspapers for the 
Department. They specify, under this head, $624 43 for 
three years. It now appears that Mr. Secretary Dicker- 
son has expended, for newspapers and fashionable books 
and literature of the times, in one year, near $700; and, in¬ 
cluding similar expenses of the Navy Board, near $950. 

The committee also condemn the practice of extra clerk 
hire. We find Mr. Dickerson not only employing three 
extra clerks, but. what is far more dangerous, paying extra 
hire to one of the regular clerks in the Department, 
enjoying, at the time, a salary of $1,760, but to whom is 
paid, “ for extra services as clerk,” the further sum of 
$429 67, making his salary $2,189 67. Is not this a ready 
mode of providing for a favorite 1 

The committee also specify the sum of $466 86, as paid 
by the Navy Department, in three years, for printing, and 
condemn it as extravagant. 

The Blue Book of 1837 shows the Navy Department, 
under the reformer, Mr.jDickerson, to have paid $9,557 22 
for printing in two years! 

The committee also reported that a “ considerable sum, 
varying from 100 to $200, was annually expended by the 
Secretary of the Navy in the purchase of books for his 
office, most of them having no appropriate relation to the 
naval service of the country, such as reviews,magazines, and 
other periodical publications, and the fashionable literature 
of the day.” This usage was, of course, to be abolished. 
Has it been '1 I beg leave to read a few items from Mr. 
Secretary Dickerson’s contingent expense account for 1837. 


2d volume Repertory of Patent Inventions, - $8 00 
2d do Southern Literary Messenger, - 5 00 
One-fourth of Audubon’s Birds, •> - 165 00 

Audubon’s Birds, - - - - 55 00 

No. 1, Indian Biography, - - - 6 00 

North American Review, - - - 5 00 

No. 4, Indian Biography, - - - 6 00 

One No. of American Scenery, - - 75 


$250 75 

Here is a display of the “ fashionable literature” in which 
Mr. Secretary Dickerson indulges himself and his clerks, 
at the public expense. I wish the gentleman from New 
York, (Mr. Cambreleng,) who aided in concocting the re¬ 
port from which I have just quoted, would inform us 
“what appropriate relation” the books and reviews just 
mentioned have “ to the naval service*?” But, what means 
the item “ one-fourth of Audubon’s Birds'?” Why, sir, I 
understand that neither of the four Secretaries being willing 
“ to take the responsibility,” “ as a unit” they agreed to divide 
it! The cost to the People is the same; it all comes from 
the “public coffers.” And the mode of doing the thing 
proves that the Secretaries felt that its expediency and pro¬ 
priety were questionable. I have read somewhere, perhaps 
in Sterne’s works, an incident which most happily illus¬ 
trates this transaction. As I recollect the story, the Abbess 
of Andouillets, and Margaretta, a novice, made a little jour¬ 
ney together, in a vehicle drawn by mules. As the eve¬ 
ning approached, they were deserted by their mu!afeer,whcn 
ascending a hill. ^ The mules presently became stubborn, 
and stonned. The travellers were greatly alarmed, and, 
in their dilemma, the novice said that there were two cer¬ 
tain words which, she had been told, would force these an¬ 


imals on the moment they heard them ; but then the words 
were sinful. The novice was urged, and she gently whis¬ 
pered the words “ bouger” and “ fouler.” The Abbess, in 
her distress, turned casuist, and said they were only a ve¬ 
nial or slight sin, which might be divided; and by taking 
half, and leaving the rest, or by taking it all, and amicably 
halving it betwixt yourself and another person, would be¬ 
come diluted into no sin at all! Therefore, my dear daugh ¬ 
ter, continued the Abbess, I will say bou, and thou shall 
say ger; and thou shall say fou, and I will say ter. Ac¬ 
cordingly, the Abbess giving the pitch note on bou, Mar¬ 
garetta responded ger\ Margaretta continued with /b?/, 
and the Abbess drawled out ter ; but still the mules stood. 
They do not understand us, cried Margaretta; but the de¬ 
vil does, said the Abbess. And, I think, Mr. Speaker, that 
these reforming Secretaries will find that they are under¬ 
stood in their patent mode of reform, and, particularly, that 
the People will not be gulled into the approval of an unau¬ 
thorized expenditure by dividing its amount among the De¬ 
partments. 

By this time, I think it is apparent that the duty de¬ 
volves on the gentleman from New York, (Mr. Cambre¬ 
leng,) not only to account for his voting against the mea¬ 
sure in regard to the compensation of members, but also 
why it is that “ a judicious system of reform” has not 
been instituted by his friends, “ the Executive officers 
themselves,” whereby the country might realize what was 
promised by the gentleman’s report—“ a reduction of one- 
third of the number of clerks in the several Departments, 
with safety to the public interest.” 

We will now look to the Post Office Department. The 
General Post Office, as it was then called, had the good 
fortune not only to escape the censure, but to enlist the 
praise, of that fault-finding era. I leave it for those who 
were familiar with the motives and political currents of 
that day, to account for this. The committee said of it— 
“ The efficiency of this branch of the public service is in 
a condition highly improved and improving.” My first 
remark on this is, that the Post Office Department passed 
into the hands of General Jackson in a healthy and effi¬ 
cient state. A few years, under his reform, reduced it to 
chaos and insolvency. The details of its mismanagement 
have been long since proved. The evidence is on file 
here and in the Senate, with the reports of the several 
committees appointed to investigate its abuses. I refer 
gentlemen to the files, and will not dwell on the 
various abuses which were designated and established. 
Their enormity, coupled with the fact of the borrowing 
money on public account by the Postmaster General, 
without law or authority, alarmed the country. But bad 
as all this was, and used, as the pecuniary patronage had 
been, to confer personal benefits on favorites, until the 
disorder and insolvency of the Department became appa¬ 
rent, still the political uses which had been made of the 
appointing patronage were not disclosed, and now never 
will be. The present Postmaster General, Amos Ken¬ 
dall, tells us in his account of the late destruction of that 
Department by fire, that all the books, papers, and files of 
the Department were saved, except the “files” of the 
“ appointment office,” and that these were destroyed ! 

In the first six years of General Jackson’s Administra¬ 
tion, about 1300 postmasters were removed from office, 
and, in most of the cases, without the assignment of any 
cause. When certain members of the committees of the 
Senate and House, appointed, in 1833-’4, to investigate 
the abuses of that Department, attempted to get at the files 
and correspondence of this “ Appointment office,” with a 
view to ascertain and report whether the reasons for these 
removals were prompted by high and just public ccnsiucr- 
ations, or by mere party political expediency, they were 
denied the right by the head of the Department and by 
the friends of the Administration, who composed a major¬ 
ity on one of these committees! Was not this inquiry 
just*? I refer you, sir, to Mr. Benton’s famous report and 
bill providing for the disclosure of reasons in case of re¬ 
moval from office. I refer you, Mr. Speaker, to your own 
remarks, and to those of your friends, in the debate on 





11 


Mr. Saunders’s resolution, which I have already quoted. 
But, above all, I refer you to the remarks of the illustrious 
Madison, unrivalled as he was in the knowledge of the 
letter and spirit of our Constitution and laws, and in pu¬ 
rity and honesty of purpose. As early as 1789, in the 
memorable debate on the power of the Executive to re¬ 
move from office, he not only denied the right to exercise 
this power capriciously, and without assigning adequate 
reasons, but he thought it would be such a bold assump¬ 
tion of lawless power, that he thus expressed himself: “ I 
own it is an abuse of power which exceeds my imagina¬ 
tion, and of which I can form no rational conception.” 

But when Mr. Van Buren and Mr. Benton (both of 
whom were on the committee which reported the bill to 
prevent the abuse of this patronage of appointment) came 
into power, they changed their tone, if not their principles. 
Removals from office immediately followed, and they deny 
any obligation to assign reasons! Is it not strange, too, 
nay, is it not mysterious, that, in the conflagration of the 
Post Office, the only papers and files destroyed chould be 
those relating to the exercise, if not the abuse, of the power 
of removal from office—the very papers which the Post¬ 
master General refused to suffer the Committees of Inves¬ 
tigation to examine'? 

I said Mr. Van Buren changed his tone on this subject. 

I will at once prove it. The journal of the Senate shows 
that he was one of the Select Committee who reported the 
bill already referred to. He entered the office of Secre¬ 
tary of State with the commencement of General Jack¬ 
son’s Administration. One of his first official acts was the 
removal of a meritorious clerk from his office in that De¬ 
partment, and a positive refusal to assign any reason for 
it! The gentleman removed is now a Member of this 
House, (Mr. Slade, of Vermont,) and the voice of the 
People has sustained him whom the despotism of Execu¬ 
tive patronage sought to destroy. 

The manner in which this patronage is abused, and the 
readiness and almost telegraphic despatch with which the 
wires of party machinery are felt throughout and from 
the most distant parts of the Union, may be imagined af¬ 
ter reading this laconic note, written by Mr. Van Buren, 
soon after entering on the duties of Secretary of State, to 
a gentleman in Louisiana : 

“Washington, April 20, 1829. 

“ My Dear Sir : I have the honor of acknowledging the 
receipt of your letter of the 21st ult. and of informing you 
that the removals and appointments you recommended were 
made on the day your letter was received. 

“ With respect, your friend, &c. 

“M. VAN BUREN.” 

And, so far from being willing to reduce the number of 
clerks in his Department, as the People were induced to 
believe would be done, Mr. Van Buren, when called on 
for that purpose, saw the whole affair through a new me¬ 
dium, and replied : “ My opinion is, that there can be no 
reduction in the number of officers employed in the De¬ 
partment, (of State,) without detriment to the public in¬ 
terest ! 1” And yet the Retrenchment Committee, when 
Mr. Clay was in that Department, reported “ that they 
felt satisfied that, had the officer at its head concurred 
with them in the opinion, they might have presented 
a plan for not only a gradual reduction of the number 
of clerks, but for an actual increase in the efficiency of 
their labors.” 

But other discrepancies between the profession and 
practice of these reformers remain to be noticed. It will 
be found that the report of the gentleman from New York, 
(Mr. Cambreleng,) and his friends, condemned “the 
practice introduced by the Secretaries of the Departments, 
of sending the reports of their clerks or heads of bureaus, 
instead of condensing them, and making them substan¬ 
tially their own communication.” This practice, if bad, 
has never been corrected, but is daily indulged in by all 
the Departments, as the answers to the calls and resolu¬ 
tions of this House abundantly show. But a still more 
remarkable commentary follows. When the Department 
of War pa.ssed into the hands of John H, Eaton, a zeal¬ 


ous reformer, he, too, was called upon to carry out his re¬ 
trenchment system, and reduce the number of his clerks, 
in fulfilment of the public expectation, which he and others 
had excited. To the surprise of all, he referred the sub¬ 
ject to the clerks themselves I and here, sir, is his reply: 

“ War Department, Jan. 27, 1830. 

“ Sir : I have the honor to lay before you reports from the 
several bureaus connected with the War Department, on the 
subject of a resolution of the 5th inst. referred to me by the 
Committee on Retrenchment. Respectfully, 

“J. H. EATON.” 

“Charles A. Wickliffe, E;q.” 

These bureaus, so far from agreeing to part with any of 
their escutcheons, actually asked for an additional supply! 
Thus ended that farce 1 

Another Precept .—This retrenchment report alleged 
that our diplomatic relations and foreign intercourse were 
unnecessarily expensive, and recommended “ a fixed ap¬ 
propriation for the contingencies of each mission,” “in no 
case exceeding ^600, (annually,) to cover the expenses of 
stationery, postage, office, clerk hire, and all other con¬ 
tingencies whatsoever.” 

Let us see the practice. Andrew Stevenson, our Minis¬ 
ter at London, is allowed for these contingencies, includ- 
ing “ presents to the menial officers and servants of the 
Court, and others, on his presentation, and at Christmas,” 
$2,098 56, in the space of about a year I The like ex¬ 
penses of nearly all our other foreign missions are in cor¬ 
respondent ratio. 

Profession . — The grade of our Foreign Ministers was 
to be reduced in some instances, especially that at Madrid, 
to a Charge, with a salary of S4,500. 

Practice .—A Minister Plenipotentiary has been kept at 
Madrid constantly, and John H. Eaton is now there on a 
salary of $9,000, having also received his outfit of the same 
amount. And during the last session of Congress an at¬ 
tempt was made to increase the salaries of all our foreign 
Ministers ! ! Who could have anticipated this from an 
Administration that proclaimed on this floor, (at least one 
of its most powerful and influential supporters, the late Mr. 
Randolph, who joined in the cry of retrenchment here 
proclaimed, and what he said received the full approbation 
of “ the party :”) 

“ So long as members of Congress, and not of this House only 
or chiefl}’^, will bow, and cringe, and duck, and fawn, and get out 
of the way at a pinching vote, or lend a helping hand, at a pinch¬ 
ing vote, to obtain these places, I never will consent to enlarge 
the salary attached to them. We are told that they live at 
St. Petersburg!) and London, and that living there is very ex¬ 
pensive. Well, sir, who sent them there 'I Were they impres¬ 
sed, sir-? Were they taken by a press-gang on Tower-hill, 
knocked down, hand-cuffed, chucked on board of a tender, and 
told that they must take the pay and rations which His Majesty 
was pleased to allow 7” 

Now I appeal to you, Mr. Speaker, if the moral applica¬ 
tion of these remarks has not been justly felt “in Con¬ 
gress, and not in this Houseonly or chiefly,” under the re¬ 
trenchment and reform Administration? 

Another precept of the reforming report .—The commit¬ 
tee thought the mode of “ appointing and compensating 
bearers of despatches liable to strong objections, prone to 
degenerate into a species of favoritism little short of a con¬ 
venient mode of sending favorites abroad to travel for their 
pleasure, health, or instruction, out of the public coffers.” 

Practice .—The President and his Secretary of State, 
both Jackson-reformers, now take a favorite clerk of the 
State Department, whose salary at the time w'as at the rate 
of $1760 per year, send him as bearer of despatches to 
Mexico, and, for about three months’ service, pay him 
$1212 88, and suffer him also to draw his clerk’s salary for 
the period of his absence ! For this I refer you to the case of 
Robt. Greenhow, who is the translating clerk of that Depart¬ 
ment ; all the facts of the case being stated in the reports 
of the Secretary. He excuses this transaction, by saying 
that the translations which were required during Mr. 
Greenhow’s absence were made at his expense. ' It might 
be well to inquire whether any translations were required 






12 


during that period, and why also it would not have been 
quite as well to discontinue the salary for the time, and let 
the Government pay for any translations which were need¬ 
ed. But do we not here distinctly realize what the re¬ 
trenchment report condemned in these words : “ that an 
actual incumbent is considered to have such a sort of prop¬ 
erty in the office as to enable him to farm out its duties, 
and to receive a part of its revenues for doing nothing 

Another illustration of this “ convenient mode of sending 
favorites abroad,” “ out of the public coffers,” is found in 
the same list of contingent expenses of foreign intercourse. 
I allude to the case of Mr. Charles Biddle, who, when 
nominated by Gen. Jackson for a judgeship in Florida, 
was rejected by the Senate. 

After this rejection Mr. Biddle was despatched by the 
Executive to Central America and New Grenada. What 
service he rendered we know not; but it appears that for 
this mission an allowance of 95 has been made. 

Mr. Charles Biddle is the same gentleman who had a 
controversy with Mr. Senator Grundy, in which the devo¬ 
tion of the latter to Gen. Jackson was questioned. We 
learn by one of the printed documents, occasioned by that 
dispute, that the Senator, for the purpose of proving him¬ 
self to be what is called a “ whole hog Jackson-man,” 
said he “ had swallowed the hog not only whole, but 
wrong end foremost, taking the bristles against the grain ; 
and had gone for all Gen. Jackson’s bob-tail nominations, 
even to Charles Biddle.” 

You may remember, Mr. Speaker, that great fault w’as 
found with Mr. Clay for an allowance to John H. Plea¬ 
sants, who was employed as bearer of despatches, and sat 
out on his voyage, but, being taken ill, was obliged to aban¬ 
don it, though he caused his despatches to be safely de¬ 
livered. In the account, which I am now examining, we 
find the sum of 5^1,522 72, paid by Mr. Forsytb, the Se¬ 
cretary of State, to Eleazer Early, sent with despatches for 
our Charg6 d’Affaires at Bogota, but which were never 
delivered. The sickness of Mr. Pleasants furnished no 
palliation, in the minds of the reformers, for the payment 
made to him, though he caused his despatches to be safely 
delivered. Yet these same gentlemen find ample pretext, 
in the alleged shipwreck of Mr. Early, to pay him ^311 35 
for expenses, $527 37 for clothing, bedding, and books, 
lost or abandoned by him, and ^714 for one hundred and 
nineteen days’ compensation, at per day, though his 
despatches were never delivered !! 

At this same time, too, Mr. Early appears to have been 
receiving a salary of SI,500 a year as Librarian of the 
House of Representatives!! It would seem that Mr. Se¬ 
cretary Forsyth is not a stranger to this “ convenient mode 
of sending favorites abroad, to travel for their pleasure, 
health, or instruction, out of the public coffers.” 

I also find that S2,515 are charged for contingent ex¬ 
penses of William T. Barry, late Minister to Spain. Now, 
sir, it is well known that Mr. Barry never reached Spain, 
but died on his way there. He, of course, received the 
usual salary and outfit; and I am at a loss to know what 
contingent expenses, incurred by him, could justly be 
charged to the United States. 

There appears, also, to have been paid to John R. Clay, 
in 1836, S3,381 41, as “ compensation for certain diploma¬ 
tic services.” This gentleman, at that time, held the place 
of Secretary of Legation at St. Petersburgh, with a salary 
of S2,000 a year, and the payment to him of the further 
sum of 83,381 41 may be justly questioned. 

Other items, indicative of extravagance or favoritism, 
may be seen in this contingent expense account of foreign 
missions, but I will not stop to specify them. 

It will also be found that, in the days of this “ search¬ 
ing operation” and “reform,” the standing committees of 
this House on the expenditures of the several departments 
attended to their vocation. But, very soon after General 
Jackson came into power, these committees became so much 
a matter of mere form that the chairman of one of them de¬ 
clared here, during the last Congress, he had never even 
thought it worth his while to convene liis committee, and he 
appeared quite surprised, or at all events amused, that any 


inquiry was expected to be made in regard to the expenses 
of these departments!! This state of things forms a strong 
contrast with the report made here in April, 1828, by Mr. 
Blair, of Tennessee, chairman of the Committee on Public 
Accounts and E.xpenditures in the State Department. He, 
you know, Mr. Speaker, was a Jackson reformer ; like the 
Select Committee, he found every thing wrong, and pro¬ 
mised to correct it. The purchase of books, the employ¬ 
ment of a librarian, and many other things, wore cen¬ 
sured—even the right to purchase a print or likeness of 
Gen. Washington, to be suspended in the Department, was 
questioned. How stands the matter now 1 W hy, large 
sums of money are yearly expended for the library of the 
State Department, and many books purchased, which are 
certainly unnecessary. 

Besides the purchase of books, periodicals, and newspa¬ 
pers, made for this Department by its disbursing agent at 
home, there was expended in London, during last year, for 
similar objects, nearly S500. A librarian is employed, at a 
salary of SI,540, equal to that paid to the librarian of the 
great public library of Congress. All this too, sir, under 
the auspices of gentlemen who said that this part of the 
expenses of that Department was censurable, and ought to 
be dispensed with, as all the officers of the Government 
could well avail themselves of the public library at the 
Capitol. But, Mr. Speaker, the times changed, and Mr. 
Van Buren and Mr. Forsyth changed with them. The 
State Department is now laid off into grand divisions. 
When Mr. Clay had charge of it, the Blue Book exhibit¬ 
ed a list of a dozen names, all under the head of clerks. 
One of these acted as translator for the Department, and 
his salary was $1,150; another paid out the funds, and 
was charged with the contingent expense accounts, and he 
received $1,150 a year. How soon is all this simplicity 
and economy forgotten ! The Blue Book of last year di¬ 
vides this Department into a “ Diplomatic Bureau,” a 
“ Consular Bureau,” a “ Home Bureau,” a “ Translator,” 
whose salary is $1,760, a “ Disbursing Agent,” whose sal¬ 
ary is $1,595, a “ Librarian,” whose salary is 81,540, a 
“ Keeper of the Archives,” whose salary is $1,540, and 
gives one man $960 a year for “ packing, filing, arrandng, 
and preserving newspapers and printed documents.” This 
is done by that boasted “ democratic party” which affects 
such holy horror at any appearance of what they call “ aris¬ 
tocratic grandeur.” If the Turk, whose letters are found 
in Salmagundi, had seen this display of “ Bureaus” in the 
State Department, he would have been better justified in 
his admiration at “ the grand and magnificent scale on 
which these Americans transact their business.” But 1 
have yet to add, that those who questioned the right of the 
State Department to purchase a print of the immortal 
Washington have used the money of the People to buy 
prints of General Jackson, and now of Martin Van Buren, 
for almost every room in each of the Departments 1! 

JMr. Speaker, during this “ searching operation” and 
captious fault-finding, every petty expense of the seveial 
Departments was looked upon with open censure. I well 
remember that an item of some few dollars, paid a laborer 
for destroying the grass which was growing between the 
bricks of the paved walk leading to the State Department, 
was held up to public view as a piece of aristocratic extra¬ 
vagance. Now, sir, suppose I were to cite to you many 
similar and equally (if not more) objectionable charges in 
the present accounts of these Departments—such as cash 
paid for clearing the snow off the pavements, so that Mr. 
Forsyth need not wet his feet; “ $90 a quarter for labor,” 
“ $54 for sundries,” “816 for work,” without stating what 
labor or work. It might have been for killing grass, or 
raising vegetables for the Secretary. The term “ sundries” 
may conceal the same things, and the curious might inquire 
what use was made of the fire-proof paint for which 878 
were paid by the Secretary of State. But the money is 
well laid out, if it will preserve the edifice ! And it is to be 
regretted that the Secretary of the Treasury and the Post¬ 
master General had not made similar purchases in time to 
save their respective buildings. Penknives and scissors, by 
! the dozen and half dozen, are purchased for the Secretary 




01 StatOj who aliSo pays a clerk to fro to Baltimore to col¬ 
lect a draft. An item of i^lOO paid by the Secretary of the 
Treasury for the transportation of money; but how much 
money, or trom whence, or where transported, we know 
not. This last charge is a kind of foretaste of the hard- 
money sub-Treasury system, by which, instead of trans¬ 
mitting the funds of the Government by means of the 
cheap, safe, and rapid system of exchange, which prevailed 
before the banks were “ debauched” by Mr. Kendall, the 
public money is now to be wagoned over the country at 
great expense and hazard, and always with delay. 

The late eminent and virtuous Attorney-General, Wil¬ 
liam Wirt, did not escape the censure of these indefatiga¬ 
ble reformers. He had rendered some professional services, 
in which the United States were interested, but which 
were not such as his official station charged upon him. 
For this service an inconsiderable sum was paid to him, 
but its propriety was questioned. The salary of the 
Attorney-General was then ^3,500, and he was allowed 
5^900 for a clerk. How stands the case now 1 The salary 
of Mr. Benjamin F. Butler, the present Attorney-Gene¬ 
ral, is S4)000, and in 1834 he was paid $4,150 19 for com¬ 
pensation, besides being allowed $1,300 for a clerk and 
messenger, and $500 for the contingent expenses of his 
office. The same additional allowance and charge, amount¬ 
ing together to $1,800, is made in 1835. Independent of 
the increased salary and the enlarged provision for a messen¬ 
ger, whence comes Mr. Butler’s right to charge an excess 
of $150 19 for compensation, besides $500 for contin¬ 
gent expenses 1 In the year 1836 we hear nothing of 
contingent expenses, but a provision of $1,407 is made 
for his clerk and messenger, and for Mr. Butler’s compen¬ 
sation that year he received $4,332, when his salary was 
only $4,000. Why was this excess of $332 paid to him 1 
He appears to have been used as a sort of Caleb Quotem. 
He has been allowed to enjoy the salary of his own office 
and that of the Secretary of War at one and the same time, 
being at the rate of $10,000 per year, pursuing too his 
profession, and receiving its emoluments. No wonder 
we see in him “the complying law officer of the 
crown.” When did he ever give an opinion contrary to the 
wish of the President, if he knew what that wasl Let 
me give an illustration. As the story is told, when the 
Baltimore railroad was about to be located at its termina¬ 
tion in this city, the company consulted Mr. Butler on 
some point as to this right of way, under their charter. Af¬ 
ter full deliberation, his professional opinion was obtained 
in writing. It happened that General Jackson felt some 
concern about the location of this right of way, and he ex¬ 
pressed an opinion on the same point, requiring a termina¬ 
tion of the road, which the company did not wish, and which 
Mr. Butler had advised them they need not adopt. Gen. 
Jackson was furnished with the opinion of the Attorney- 
General ; but, instead of yielding, he endorsed on it, “ Mr. 
Butler has not examined this case with his usual care; let 
this paper be referred back to him, with a copy of the char¬ 
ter, for his re-examination.” In due time, sir, the Attor¬ 
ney-General agrees with the President, and gives an opin¬ 
ion in conformity with that which Gen. Jackson had ex¬ 
pressed ! After this, Mr. Speaker, we need not be surpris¬ 
ed £tt the absurd opinion of Mr. Butler, given as a founda¬ 
tion or justification for Gen. Jackson to pocket the bill 
repealing the Treasury circular, and which had passed both 
Houses of Congress almost by acclamation. Nor, indeed, 
should we be astonished at any opinion of his, unless he 
should have happened to give one diffeient from what he 
supposed the President wanted. 

I wish, now, to make a few comments on the professions 
and practice of Mr. Amos Kendall, late Fourth Auditor, 
and now Postmaster General. This gentleman, you know, 
sir, was an eleventh-hour Jackson man. He, however, 
was among the first who got office; and immediately after 
his appointment, a letter of his is published, in which, after 
holding himself and a few friends up as having been per¬ 
secuted, he exclaims, “what has Heaven done'? So dis¬ 
posed of events, as to make Barry Postmaster General, 
and myself a more humble Auditor.” As to Mr. Barry, 


no matter “ what events” made him Postmaster General, 
we know that under his management that department was 
deranged and rendered insolvent! 

But now for this “ humble Auditor,” or, as from his own 
question, he is sometimes called, “ this Heaven-born” 
Amos. If history does him justice, it will be found that 
he desired office under Mr. Clay, which, it not being in 
the power of the latter to provide, Mr. Kendall espoiTsed 
the cause of General Jackson. 

In this letter of Mr. Kendall, he says : 

“I feel bound by my obligations to my country, and by the 
pledges so often repeated by all the principal men of our party, 
to promote, with all my talents and industry, the reforms 
which the People demand. I will prove that our declarations 
have not been hollow pretences. Besides, I hold the interfe¬ 
rence of Federal officers with State politics to be improper in 
principle.” 

For the reform under this last paragraph, I refer you to 
Mr. Kendall’s letters and toasts sent to various political 
meetings and dinners throughout the country, for a few 
years past, on the eve of State elections. 

When Mr. Kendall entered upon the duties of his Au¬ 
ditor’s office, he caused to be published in the United 
States Telegraph, the then official organ, a letter, in which 
he says, “ The interest of the country demands that this 
office shall be filled with men of business^ and not with 
babbling politicians.” Sir, the whole letter was the work 
of a babbling politician, expressly designed for political 
and demagogue ends, which the writer, in the same breath, 
said he had quit and left for others ! I will read a few 
passages from it. “ In five days I have returned to the 
post office twenty letters and three pamphlets, enclosed 
to the Fourth Auditor, and directed to other persons!” 
How long after this letter was it before Mr. Kendall, for 
the purpose of building up the Globe newspaper, and the 
fortune of his friend Francis P. Blair, (another eleventh- 
hour Jackson man, whom he had brought from his former 
residence at Frankfort, Kentucky,) sent under his frank 
to Kentucky, and perhaps elsewhere, the prospectus of this 
newspaper'? 

In that same letter Mr. Kendall also says : 

“Upon entering this office, on Monday last, one of the first 
objects which struck my eye was a pile of newspapers on my 
table. Among them, I counted sixteen different papers, all of 
which I was told were subscribed for by the Fourth Auditor, 
and paid for out of the Treasury.” 

He sent them back, as he then stated, with a note to 
each ; of which the following is a copy : 

Treasury Department, 

Fourth Auditor’s Offic?, March 24, 1829. 

Sir : Not believing that I am authorized to charge the Gov¬ 
ernment with subscriptions to newspapers and other publica¬ 
tions, which are not useful to me in the discharge of my official 
duties ; and not perceiving that I can derive any assistance from 
your journal in settling the accounts of the United States Navy, 
I have to request that you will discontinue sending it to this 
office. Very respectfully, your obedient servant, 

AMOS KENDALL. 

Here, Mr. Speaker, is a fine display of the “ pride, 
pomp, and circumstance” of office, if not of official inso¬ 
lence. But yesterday he was himself the editor and pub¬ 
lisher of a newspaper: he next appeal's, in his own lan¬ 
guage, an “ humble Auditor.” But, sir, does not the letter 
just read show that he had forgotten his humility, and be¬ 
come puffed up with official consequence! 

Why did he not simply tell his brother editors, in brief 
and respectful language, that he had discontinued the sub¬ 
scription for their paper'? 

But a further thought is suggested by this letter of Mr. 
Amos Kendall, and his reason for discontinuing newspa¬ 
per subscriptions. He is now, sir. Postmaster General. 
Suppose we look at the statement of the contingent ex¬ 
penses of his office for the last year. Do you think we 
shall find any subscriptions for newspapers there “ paid for 
out of the Treasury I” Listen to a few items : 

Southern Literary Messenger, - - $10 00 

New York Journal of Commerce - - 10 00 



14 


Alleghany Democrat - - - 14 81 

Pennsylvanian - - - - 8 00 

Indian Biography - - - - 6 00 

, Metropolitan Magazine - - - 8 00 

Three copies of the Daily Globe !!! - 30 00 

Richmond Enquirer •• - - 5 00 


Sundry others which I will not stop to name: the whole 
number being twenty or upwards, and the total of subscrip¬ 
tion within a small fraction of $200 ! He was frightened 
at a pile of 16 newspapers, but he can now take 20 at a dose ! 
Can it be possible that a man, who came into office declar¬ 
ing, like the Pharisee of old, that “ he was not like other 
men,” and would even “ tithe, mint, and cummin,” begins 
already to “ neglect the weightier matters of the law 1” 
What becomes of his inflated promise “ to prove” that his 
“ declarations had not been hollow pretences'?” Of what 
value was his declaration, made in his letter before referred 
to, and in which he says, “Vain 1 may be, proud lam, 
that the President has given me an opportunity to aid him 
in proving that reform is not an empty sound, and is not 
to apply merely to a change of men '?” Why, sir, I quote 
as a reply to these questions his own words, in another pas¬ 
sage of his own letter: “ The world well know him at last, 
and assign him his true rank.” “ Truth is omnipotent, and 
public justice certain.” 

Among Mr. Kendall’s reforms may be mentioned his 
leading agency in the removal of the public deposites from 
the Bank of the United States. To effect this, he carried 
on a system of “ billing and cooing” with the State banks, 
and, in the language of a certain Senator, (Mr. Benton,) 
“ debauched them.” “Yes, sir, debauch is the word.” I 
apply it to the Government and banks, though the Senator 
thought the People had been debauched, and applied it to 
them. For this work of “ debauch,” which proved so seri¬ 
ous a curse to the country, this agent was employed thirty- 
two days, and was paid for this service the sum of $316 11, 
being about ten dollars a day for a job which has occasion¬ 
ed much of the embarrassment under which the country 
now labors. He got ^10 a day for doing this injury to the 
Public—a hard-working laborer finds it difficult to get his 
dollar a day. But still, Mr. Kendall belongs to the “ de¬ 
mocratic party,” and whilst he received his $10 a day for 
that work, he also received the regular salary of his office. 
This appears to be an established usage of this Adminis¬ 
tration. The case of the Attorney General is already men¬ 
tioned. The reports from the Departments show several 
other cases, though I will now only add that of the Com¬ 
missioner of Indian Affairs, who was for a while acting 
Secretary of War, and during this period drew the salaries 
of each office, being at the rate of $9,000 a year. 

But, Mr. Speaker, no man better knows all the uses of 
office than Mr. Kendall, I have read a political tract, writ¬ 
ten, I think, by Dean Swift, entitled somewhat in this 
way: “ The convenience of a place at Court, or a sure 
mode of providing garments for a whole family.” Mr. 
Kendall appears to understand the “ modus operandV’ of 
this matter. The printed list of clerks in his Department 
exhibits his fatlier-in-law and two nephews, with salaries 
of $1,000, $1,200, and SI,400 ; and thus we see a family 
provision of nearly $10,000 a year, including his own salary. 
But Mr. Kendall is not the only officer who thus takes 
care of his- own household. If provision of this kind be 
evidence of “ faith,” few of them will be found “ infidels,” 
The President’s son has an office, which I have already 
mentioned, of $1,500 a year. The Secretary of State’s son, 
until very lately, held the place of District Attorney in 
Alabama. A near relation by marriage of the Secretary or 
the Treasury has a comfortable annuity of $1,400 in the 
Navy Department; another holds the appointment of naval 
officer in Boston, with a salary of 83,000 per year, besides 
being President of the Lafayette Bank of that city ; and a 
third is the Cashier of the Franklin Bank of that city, 
which became a special pet under the pet bank system. 
These gentlemen would all make excellent sub-Trea- 
surers ! 

Mr. Bond said, when the proposition for retrenchment 
was under consideration here in 1828, the friends of Mr. 


Adams, by way of proving that he and they de sired ever 
just economy and reform, pointed to his Message recom¬ 
mending it. How were they answered ? Why, sir, Mr. 
Ingham, who soon afterwards was made Secretary of the 
Treasury, said it was indeed true that the Message did re¬ 
commend it, but he wanted to see more practice and less 
profession in this matter. There were no specified reforms 
found in the Message; he could only find there one of 
those formal recommendations, which were as unmeaning, 
he said, as the words “your humble servant” at the foot of 
a letter. Mr. Randolph, in the same debate, used this lan¬ 
guage, on the subject of retrenchment and reform: 

“The President did recommend them, in one of those lofty 
generalities, with which all sermons, political or religious, 
abound ; which might be printed in blank, like law process, and 
filled as occasions might require. But, sir, (said he,) I am for 
looking at the practices, and not at the precepts of the parson, 
political or religious.” 

Mr. Bond said this rule of Mr. Randolph was perfect¬ 
ly just; it was thus shown, too, to be avowed by this Ad¬ 
ministration, and he was willing to judge them by their 
own rule, and thought to this they ought not to object. He 
would leave it to the House and to the People to say whe¬ 
ther the “ practices” of this Administration “ had conform¬ 
ed to their precepts.” 

Was the recommendation in General Jackson’s inaugu¬ 
ral address one of those “ lofty generalities” just spoken of, 
and defined by Mr. Randolph 1 The “ Unit Cabinet” must 
have lost the art of reading, otherwise “ reform” was not 
quite so “legibly inscribed” as the General imagined. That 
patronage of the Federal Government which was said to be 
brought into conflict with the freedom of State elections 
has greatly increased, and is still unrestrained, in the same 
conflict. 

The gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Bell) has for years 
labored to bring this House to the consideration of a bill to 
secure the freedom of elections, and thus carry into effect 
the recommendation of General Jackson’s inaugural ad¬ 
dress. Able as that gentleman is, and untiring as he has 
been in his efforts, the measure proposed by him has re¬ 
ceived the frowns instead of the favor of this Administra¬ 
tion. He and the venerable Senator from the same State 
(Mr. White) were the early and devoted friends of Gene¬ 
ral Jackson, and they still desire to carry into practical ef¬ 
fect the principles which they, with General Jackson, pro¬ 
fessed to be governed by. They feel and know the imminent 
danger which threatens the country, in the increased 
strength of the patronage of office. They see, and we all 
see, that the office-holders are “ abroad in the land.” For a 
description of this growing phalanx and its powerful incen¬ 
tive to action, I will draw on high authority. A member 
of the Senate, (Mr. Grundy,) a zealous friend of General 
Jackson, the evidence of which has been already given in 
his own words, held this language, when aiming to pull 
down the old Administration : “ When I see (said he) 
an office-holder interfering in elections, it has occurred to 
me that he was thinking of his salary, and is, therefore, an 
unfit adviser of the People.” 

Mr. Speaker, that which occurred to Mr. Grundy no 
doubt often occurred to you at the same period. The pro¬ 
position is a very natural one, and I think that recent 
events have strengthened rather than impaired its truth. 
But I beg the further indulgence of the House while I 
read what another distinguished friend of General Jack- 
son said, when debating the subject of retrenchment and 
reform on this floor. I allude to Mr. Buchanan, now a 
Senator from Pennsylvania, and, with his continued and 
growing devotion to the party, what he said will certainly 
be considered “orthodox.” I find, by that debate, that he 
said it was well known 

“Tliat when a man is once appointed to office, all the selfish 
passions of his nature are enlisted for the purpose of retaining it. 
The office-holders (said he) are the enlisted soldiers of that Ad¬ 
ministration by which they are sustained. Their comfortable 
existence often depends upon the re-election of their patron. 
Nor does disappointment long rankle in the hearts of the disap¬ 
pointed. Hope is still left to them; and bearing disappoint- 




15 


merit with patience they know will present a new claim to of¬ 
fice at a future time.” 

This passage of Mr. Buchanan’s speech proves him to 
have been an observer of men anti things, and familiar with 
the leading principles of human action. He dreaded the 
consequences of the selfish spirit of the office-holder, and 
induced the country to believe that Gen. Jackson and his 
friends would provide a suitable restraint upon it. But I 
fear, sir, the People will be left to conclude that this gen¬ 
tleman is one of those “political parsons” described by Mr. 
Randolph, whose “ practices” do not correspond with his 
“ precepts.” It is certain that, under the favorite Adminis¬ 
tration of the gentleman and his friends, the office-holders 
have received new life, instead of a check. But I must 
yet point out another discrepancy between Mr. Buchanan’s 
profession and practice. In the same debate, he reviewed, 
with censure, several of the foreign missions, that to Rus¬ 
sia included ; and particularly condemned any practice al¬ 
lowing a minister to “return after one year’s absence.” His 
language is: “ If such a practice should prevail, our minis¬ 
ters, in violation of the spirit of the existing law, will re¬ 
ceive, by adding the outfit to the salary, S18,000, instead of 
89,000, for one year’s service.” “ I am,” said he, “ against 
the practice.” This, Mr. Speaker, was his precept. But, 
sir, in a brief space of time, after condemning and saying 
“ I am against the practice,” we see him take the bounty, 
and become one of the “enlisted soldiers” whom he had 
described, and go on a foreign mission to Russia, where, 
after staying “ a twelve-month and a day,” he pockets the 
“818,000, instead of 89,000, for a year’s service,” and 
comes home ! 

This seems to be an appropriate time to compare the 
precepts and practice of Mr. Randolph, too, who said he 
“ was for looking at the practices, and not the precepts, of 
the parson, political or religious.” In that same debate, 
Mr. Randolph said he “could not permit any motive con¬ 
nected with the division of the spoil, to mingle with” his 
exertions. He would not, he said, give up his constituents 
and the pleasures of his home, “ for a clerkship in the 
War Office, or a foreign mission ; or even for a Depart¬ 
ment of State.” He said, “there had been an improve¬ 
ment in the plan of sending ministers abroad, and bringing 
them back, when they have finished their business ; for,” 
said he, “ they are now sent abroad on sleeveless errands, 
that they may come back re-infecta, to pocket their emolu¬ 
ments.” Mr. Speaker, the Greeks and Romans both held 
it to be a highly useful, but exceedingly difficult, matter 
to know one’s self. Modern history, and our own times, 
add new force to the truth of that position. I do not at all 
question the perfect sincerity of Mr. Randolph, when he 
uttered the sentiments; but great as he may have been, 
and skilful as he professed to be, and, no doubt, was, in the 
motives of human action, after events proved how little he 
knew of himself. Sir, we soon found Mr. Randolph giving 
up his constituents, and leaving all the boasted endear¬ 
ments of his district, for a foreign mission to Russia, where, 
so far as any public advantage resulted from it, he empha¬ 
tically went on a “ sleeveless errand,” and “ came back re- 
infecta, to pocket his emoluments !” Indeed, this mission 
to Russia seems to have been specially dedicated by “ the 
party” to short terms of six and twelve months, for the ad¬ 
vantage of some of the “ enlisted soldiers” described by 
Mr. Buchanan. In this way, the cost of that mission has 
been inordinately/ increased ; and it is high time that this 
drain on the public Treasury for private benefit should be 
checked. 

Mr. Bond said it was not to be disguised that many of 
the politicians who engaged in the debate and strife of the 
times to which he had alluded, had been surprised, if not 
disappointed, by events which soon followed. A singular 
exchange of position has taken place between two of these 
gentlemen. When the retrenchment resolution was dis¬ 
cussed, a friend of the then Administration, Mr. Pearce, 
of Rhode Island, took ground, not in terms, but somewhat 
similar to that now avowed and practised by the dominant 
party, “ that the spoils belong to the victors.” Mr. 
Wickliffe, a Jackson reformer, denied and condemned such 


a right. He was appointed a member of the retrenchment 
and reform committee, and, after Gen. Jackson came into 
power, Mr. Wickliffe zealously endeavored to carry out 
the promised reform ; but not finding the co-operation he 
had expected, he abjured “ the party.” About this time, it 
happened that the reformers avowed the doctrine “ that 
the spoils belong to the victors,” and Mr. Pearce enlisted 
under their banner. 

Sir, has not the country been disappointed 1 Have not 
the People been deceived and allured by specious and vain 
promises 1 Has not the Federal Executive patronage in¬ 
ordinately increased, and is it not still unrestrained 'I Is 
not the power over it abused and perverted 1 Do not the 
expenses of our General Government far transcend in 
amount all our past history'? Why are these things so, 
and why has not this “ plague been stayed,” Mr. Speaker, 
according to your plighted faith '? I will tell you why, sir, 
but I prefer doing so in the language and illustration of 
one of your own friends, Mr. Buchanan, of the Senate, 
to whom I have before referred. In his speech here, to 
which I have already alluded, and when he was assaulting 
the (then) Administration, he thus exclaimed : “The very 
possession of power has a strong, a natural tendency to 
corrupt the heart. The lust of dominion grows with its 
possession ; and the man who, in humble life, was pure, 
and innocent, and just, has often been transformed, by 
the long possession of power, into a monster. In the sa¬ 
cred Book, which contains lessons of wisdom for the poli¬ 
tician as well as for the Christian, we find a happy illus¬ 
tration of the corrupting influence of power upon the hu¬ 
man heart. When Hazael came to consult Elisha whe¬ 
ther his master, the King of Syria, would recover from a 
dangerous illness, the prophet, looking through the vista 
of futurity, saw the crimes of which the messenger, who 
stood before him, would be guilty, and he wept. Hazael 
asked, ‘ why weepeth my lord'?’ The prophet then re¬ 
counted to him the murders and the cruelties of which he 
should be guilty towards the children of Israel. Hazael, 
in the spirit of virtuous indignation, replied : ‘ Is thy serv¬ 
ant a dog, that he should do this thing '?’ And Elisha an¬ 
swered, ‘ The Lord hath shown me that thou shaft be 
King over Syria.’ This man afterwards became King by 
the murder of his master, and was guilty of enormities, 
the bare recital of which would make us shudder.” 

How true, and, alas! how applicable is this sacred 
illustration to those who invoked its use in elevating them¬ 
selves to power! 

Suppose, Mr. Speaker, that some inspired Elisha had 
been present when you and Mr. Buchanan, with others, 
engaged in the debate which has been referred to, and, 
mcTved by the sympathetic tear of the prophet, you had 
asked, “ Why weepeth my lord '?” how would you have 
been astonished in being then told what the People of this 
country have since realized ! 

Imagine, sir, the inspired one looking through the vista 
of a few brief years and saying. You will be placed in 
power, but will greatly increase the amount of all public 
expenditures. You will use the offices and patronage of 
the country for private and not for public good. You vyill 
create offices for favorites. You will enlarge all Executive 
power. You will deny the right to call for reasons on a 
removal from office, and in a few years will remove more 
than 1500 persons from office for opinion’s sake! You will 
derange and corrupt the Post Office Department, which 
you now admit to be sound, and you will not reform any of 
your designated abuses in the other Departments. You 
will appoint more members of Congress to office in four 
years than has been done in all the past history of the Go¬ 
vernment. Your bill for the abolition of the power and 
patronage over the Press will sleep the sleep of death. 
You will retain “ the press, the post office, the armed force, 
and the appointing power in the hands of the President, 
and will not suffer them to change position and take post 
on the side of the People.” You now cessure a small 
appropriation to purchase some additional furniture for the 
President’s house, but you will furnish that house in lux¬ 
urious style for Gen. Jackson, who will be succeeded by 




Mr. Van Buren; and he, not content with the second¬ 
hand furniture of his predecessor, will cast it off and make 
his entry into that edifice, with one appropriation of ^7,300 
for alterations of the house and superintendence of the 
grounds, and another appropriation of S20,000 for new 
furniture ; and this, too, in the very year when your pub¬ 
lic treasury will be bankrupt. You will increase the ex¬ 
penses of foreign missions and suffer your Ministers to 
return home on such brief service as will show their ap¬ 
pointments to have been made for individual gain rather 
than public good. You will increase the contingent ex¬ 
penses of this House from $80,000, the present annual 
amount, to $210,000. You will add to the like expenses 
of the Senate and to all other public expenditures in the 
same ratio; and the sum total for the whole civil list 
and ordinary appropriations of the Government, which is 
now SI'S,163,438, will be increased from time to time under 
your boasted reform, until it shall exceed thirty millions per 
year ! 

You now question the right of a Department to purchase 
a print or likeness of the immortal Washington, but will 
decorate every room in all the Departments with portraits 
of Martin Van Buren. You will, by means of the “ office 
holders,” the “enlisted soldiers,” as you have just called 
them, bring the patronage of the General Government into 
conflict with the freedom of elections, and you will resist 
the bill that shall be brought in to secure the freedom of those 
elections. You, Mr, Randolph, will go upon what you now 
call a “ sleeveless errand,” and, after saluting the Emperor 
of Russia, will make a pleasant sojourn in “ old England,” 
and return to your estate in Virginia. You, Mr. Buchan¬ 
an, will become “ an office-holder and enlisted soldier,” go 
on the very mission to Russia which you are now censur¬ 
ing, and will pocketthe $18,000 for “ a twelve-month and a 
day’s” service. You,(to the gentleman from New York,) 
Mr.C AMBRELENG, will oppose a Vote against the very measure 
which you now report and recommend, for reducing the pay 
of members, as a means of shortening the session of Con¬ 
gress. You, Mr. Stevenson, will be made Speaker of this 
House, and appoint its committees, and dispense its rules, 


with the promise of a foreign mission in your pocket. You, 
Mr. Benton, will vote to lay on the table the bill which 
you now report to take the patronage of the press from the 
Government,and your report on Executivepatronage,with its 
six accompanying bills so imposingly introduced, will prove 
to have been but as “sounding brass and tinkling cymbals!” 
You, Mr. Van Buren, who now, as a member of the 
committee on Executive patronage, report a bill requiring 
reasons to be assigned tor removing an incumbent from 
office, will be made Secretary of State, and in due time 
President, but, from the moment you obtain power, you will 
forget your bill, and not only violate but refuse to be govern¬ 
ed by its principles. You, Mr. Dickerson, also a member 
of that committee, will be made Secretary of the Navy ; but 
the Department will besomismanaged underjyourdirection, 
that it will be truly said of you on the floor of Congress, 

“ there is none so poor as to do him reverence.” You, Mr. 
Woodbury, will take first the Navy and then the Trea¬ 
sury Department, and, under your supervision, an attempt 
to humbug the People with the promise of an exclusive 
hard money currency will result in the banishment of all 
specie, a bankrupt Treasury, and a circulation of shinplas- 
ters and Treasury notes. 

Imagine, then, Mr. Speaker such a response to have*'' 
been made at the period ot time which I have suggested. 
What would have been your reply, and what would Mr. 
Buchanan, who made the scriptural allusion, have* said 
Methinks I almost see and hear him exclaim. Is thy ser¬ 
vant a dog that he should do this thing 'I 

We are told that, notwithstanding the indignation of 
Hazael, he reached the throne of Syria by murdering the 
King his master, and soon committed all the enormities 
foretold by the prophet ! 

Sir, I fear that, in despite of the protestations of AmosKen 
dall, the promised “ reform” was “ an empty sound,” 
“intended to apply merely to a change of men.” But I 
leave it for this House and for the People of this country 
to judge whether their confidence has not been betrayed 
and their hopes disappointed. 



